Within the Department of Energy’s National Transportation Research Center at ORNL’s Hardin Valley Campus, scientists investigate engines designed to help the U.S. pivot to a clean mobility future.
Steven Campbell can often be found deep among tall cases of power electronics, hunkered in his oversized blue lab coat, with 1500 volts of electricity flowing above his head. When interrupted in his laboratory at ORNL, Campbell will usually smile and duck his head.
Carl Dukes’ career as an adept communicator got off to a slow start: He was about 5 years old when he spoke for the first time. “I’ve been making up for lost time ever since,” joked Dukes, a technical professional at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Andrea Delgado is looking for elementary particles that seem so abstract, there appears to be no obvious short-term benefit to her research.
Chemist Jeff Foster is looking for ways to control sequencing in polymers that could result in designer molecules to benefit a variety of industries, including medicine and energy.
Elizabeth Herndon believes in going the distance whether she is preparing to compete in the 2020 Olympic marathon trials or examining how metals move through the environment as a geochemist at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
In Hong Wang’s world, nothing is beyond control. Before joining Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a senior distinguished researcher in transportation systems, he spent more than three decades studying the control of complex industrial systems in the United Kingdom.
Sometimes solutions to the biggest problems can be found in the smallest details. The work of biochemist Alex Johs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory bears this out, as he focuses on understanding protein structures and molecular interactions to resolve complex global problems like the spread of mercury pollution in waterways and the food supply.
Galigekere is principal investigator for the breakthrough work in fast, wireless charging of electric vehicles being performed at the National Transportation Research Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
When Scott Smith looks at a machine tool, he thinks not about what the powerful equipment used to shape metal can do – he’s imagining what it could do with the right added parts and strategies. As ORNL’s leader for a newly formed group, Machining and Machine Tool Research, Smith will have the opportunity to do just that.