In 1942, Katharine (Kay) Way was teaching physics at the University of Tennessee when a former professor recruited her to join the top-secret Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago. 

Since 2010, DOE’s Office of Science has helped to expand and invigorate the nation’s scientific workforce by supporting 785 young scientists at universities and national laboratories through its Early Career Research Program. This year, three ORNL scientists were among the 83 selected to receive ECRP awards.

Trey Gebhart traces his interest in fusion energy back to his experiences as an undergraduate engineering student at Virginia Tech.

Elizabeth Herndon has already worked in a variety of environments, focusing her research on how soil minerals affect the storage or release of organic matter and nutrients in various ecosystems.

"When I was an undergraduate, my major was mathematics,” Guannan Zhang said, “but when I went to graduate school, I got into programming and other aspects of computing, so it was very natural for me to pursue a Ph.D. in computational mathematics.”

ORNL physicist Libby Johnson, one of the world’s first nuclear reactor operators, standardized the field of criticality safety with peers from ORNL and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

ORNL is proud of its role in fostering the next generation of scientists and engineers.