Matthew Craig grew up eagerly exploring the forest patches and knee-high waterfalls just beyond his backyard in central Illinois’ corn belt. Today, that natural curiosity and the expertise he’s cultivated in biogeochemistry and ecology are focused on how carbon cycles in and out of soils, a process that can have tremendous impact on the Earth’s climate.
Chemical and environmental engineer Samarthya Bhagia is focused on achieving carbon neutrality and a circular economy by designing new plant-based materials for a range of applications from energy storage devices and sensors to environmentally friendly bioplastics.
Science has taken Melanie Mayes from Tennessee to the tropics, studying some of the most important ecosystems in the world.
Bryan Piatkowski, a Liane Russell Distinguished Fellow in the Biosciences Division at ORNL, is exploring the genetic pathways for traits such as stress tolerance in several plant species important for carbon sequestration
Spanning no less than three disciplines, Marie Kurz’s title — hydrogeochemist — already gives you a sense of the collaborative, interdisciplinary nature of her research at ORNL.
For ORNL environmental scientist and lover of the outdoors John Field, work in ecosystem modeling is a profession with tangible impacts.
Moving to landlocked Tennessee isn’t an obvious choice for most scientists with new doctorate degrees in coastal oceanography.
As a metabolic engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Adam Guss modifies microbes to perform the diverse processes needed to make sustainable biofuels and bioproducts.
As rising global temperatures alter ecosystems worldwide, the need to accurately simulate complex environmental processes under evolving conditions is more urgent than ever.
Carly Hansen, a water resources engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is rethinking what’s possible for hydropower in the United States.