Early career scientist Frankie White's was part of two major isotope projects at the same time he was preparing to be a father. As co-lead on a team that achieved the first synthesis and characterization of a radium compound using single crystal X-ray diffraction and part of a team that characterized the properties of promethium, White reflects on the life-changing timeline at work, and at home.
John Lagergren, a staff scientist in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Plant Systems Biology group, is using his expertise in applied math and machine learning to develop neural networks to quickly analyze the vast amounts of data on plant traits amassed at ORNL’s Advanced Plant Phenotyping Laboratory.
Mohamad Zineddin hopes to establish an interdisciplinary center of excellence for nuclear security at ORNL, combining critical infrastructure assessment and protection, risk mitigation, leadership in nuclear security, education and training, nuclear security culture and resilience strategies and techniques.
Cheekatamarla is a researcher in the Multifunctional Equipment Integration group with previous experience in product deployment. He is researching alternative energy sources such as hydrogen for cookstoves and his research supports the decarbonization of building technologies.
Alyssa Carrell started her science career studying the tallest inhabitants in the forest, but today is focused on some of its smallest — the microbial organisms that play an outsized role in plant health.
Although he built his career around buildings, Fengqi “Frank” Li likes to break down walls. Li was trained as an architect, but he doesn’t box himself in. Currently he is working as a computational developer at ORNL. But Li considers himself a designer. To him, that’s less a box than a plane – a landscape scattered with ideas, like destinations on a map that can be connected in different ways.
Biologist Larry York’s fascination with plant roots has spurred his research across four continents and inspired him to create accessible tools that enable others to explore the underground world.
Carrie Eckert applies her skills as a synthetic biologist at ORNL to turn microorganisms into tiny factories that produce a variety of valuable fuels, chemicals and materials for the growing bioeconomy.
Having co-developed the power electronics behind ORNL’s compact, high-level wireless power technology for automobiles, Erdem Asa is looking to the skies to apply the same breakthrough to aviation.
She may not wear a white coat or carry a stethoscope, but Christine Walker of ORNL spends her days diagnosing the energy health of buildings and figuring out how to improve their efficiency to achieve cost savings and reduce their carbon footprint.