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Erin Webb, lead for the Bioresources Science and Engineering group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been elected a Fellow of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers — the society’s highest honor. 

Man in blue shirt and grey pants holds laptop and poses next to a green plant in a lab.

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

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.

David Pointer

ORNL has named W. David Pointer, director of the Nuclear Energy and Fuel Cycle Division in ORNL’s Fusion and Fission Energy and Science Directorate. As director, Pointer will lead a world-class team of ORNL research professionals focused on addressing the challenges and opportunities presented by current and future nuclear energy systems. 

As a chemical engineer focusing on low-carbon energy sources like hydrogen, Cheekatamarla’s research at ORNL supports the deployment of clean energy technologies in buildings and industries. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

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. 

Rigoberto Advincula has been elected to the to the AIMBE College of Fellows. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Rigoberto “Gobet” Advincula, a scientist with joint appointments at ORNL and the University of Tennessee, has been named a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Alyssa Carrell is an ORNL ecologist studying how plant-microbe relationships can build resilience in natural ecosystems vulnerable to climate change. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

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. 

Fengqi “Frank” Li brings computational and architectural expertise to building energy modeling in ORNL’s Grid Interactive Controls group. Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

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. 

Chelsea Chen, polymer physicist at ORNL, stands in front of an eight-channel potentiostat and temperature chamber used for battery and electrochemical testing. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Chelsea Chen, a polymer physicist at ORNL, is studying ion transport in solid electrolytes that could help electric vehicle battery charges last longer.

Jason DeGraw, a buildings researcher in thermal energy storage at ORNL, has been named a 2024 ASHRAE Fellow. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers, or ASHRAE, selected Jason DeGraw, a researcher with ORNL, as one of 23 members elevated to Fellow during its 2024 winter conference.