Portrait of Sreelekha Guggilam in purple shirt with black background.
Sreelekha Guggilam - using data-driven information for national security challenges
Tom Karnowski sits in the drivers seat of a car and adjusts a sensor behind the rear view mirror
Understanding why cars crash and why they don’t
Aerial drone picture showing a scan of an urban street. Tags on the picture show where utility poles are and show green for undamaged and red for damaged.
Scientists develop mobile system for object detection, image analysis in disaster response

National Security Science Area

Our science secures the nation

From climate change and cyber attacks to nuclear proliferation and critical infrastructure vulnerabilities, the threats to America’s national security continue to evolve and emerge at a rapid pace. To effectively counter those threats—and protect our nation—we must increasingly turn to science, to the technologies and innovations that underpin our defenses.

The National Security Sciences Directorate is rapidly advancing the science of resilience, security, and analytics to solve critical challenges in nuclear security, cybersecurity, and human security. Our world-leading researchers engage in collaboration across the Laboratory—in areas such as nuclear and chemical sciences, applied materials, advanced manufacturing, biosecurity, transportation, and supercomputing—to protect the nation today while identifying and addressing future threats.

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Our Science

Nuclear Science
Cyber Science
Geospatial Science
Researcher Heath Huckaby in a laboratory

Nuclear

From the world’s first continuously operating nuclear reactor to follow-on discoveries over the years, ORNL has developed unparalleled nuclear infrastructure and uranium fuel cycle science expertise. Today, we build on this legacy to deliver the full spectrum of scientific, technical, and operational solutions to nonproliferation challenges around the globe.

A woman in safety glasses smiles while working on microelectronics

Cyber

We develop novel cyber science approaches to identify and characterize our nation’s adversaries, enable resilient operation of critical systems, and help analysts process multi-modal data streams to more efficiently understand threats and inform mission-driven response actions.

A woman works at her desk with multiple computer monitors.

Geospatial

Our unique integration of human dynamics, location intelligence, geospatial AI, remote sensing, autonomous systems, resilient communications, and high-performance computing is transforming how we observe, analyze, and visualize landscape and human dynamics across the world, providing decision-makers with novel insights on human populations, the built environment, and critical infrastructures.

Our Science: Helping secure the nation

https://www.youtube.com/embed/RDaTSiZY5KE

Our People: Serving with Passion

https://youtu.be/zJhxuZz2ccA

Our People: Tackling Big Challenges

https://youtu.be/VUsvh5EnPPU

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A woman in a lab coat and safety glasses examines a material sample.
The word “exotic” may not spark thoughts of #uranium, but Tyler Spano’s investigations of exotic phases of uranium are bringing new knowledge to the nuclear nonproliferation industry.
A woman stands in front of the Summit supercomputer
“Powerful network-based simulations can help predict the cascading impacts across #criticalinfrastructure, especially during extreme events,” says Supriya Chinthavali.
cyber security image collage
Two ORNL technologies, Situ and Heartbeat, have been #licensed to U2opia Technology to advance #cybersecurity monitoring in real time.