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.
Having passed the midpoint of his career, physicist Mali Balasubramanian was part of a tight-knit team at a premier research facility for X-ray spectroscopy. But then another position opened, at ORNL— one that would take him in a new direction.
Materials scientist Denise Antunes da Silva researches ways to reduce concrete’s embodied carbon in the Sustainable Building Materials Laboratory at ORNL, a research space dedicated to studying environmentally friendly building materials. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy
Gang Seob “GS” Jung has known from the time he was in middle school that he was interested in science.
When Bill Partridge started working with industry partner Cummins in 1997, he was a postdoctoral researcher specializing in applied optical diagnostics and new to Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
What’s getting Jim Szybist fired up these days? It’s the opportunity to apply his years of alternative fuel combustion and thermodynamics research to the challenge of cleaning up the hard-to-decarbonize, heavy-duty mobility sector — from airplanes to locomotives to ships and massive farm combines.
David McCollum is using his interdisciplinary expertise, international networks and boundless enthusiasm to lead Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s contributions to the Net Zero World initiative.
Bruce Warmack has been fascinated by science since his mother finally let him have a chemistry set at the age of nine. He’d been pestering her for one since he was six.
Burak Ozpineci started out at ORNL working on a novel project: introducing silicon carbide into power electronics for more efficient electric vehicles. Twenty years later, the car he drives contains those same components.