Xin Sun spent her early career helping define a new scientific field, and now she plans to use her technical and managerial experience to expand the capabilities of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Energy and Transportation Science Division (ETSD) as she steps in as division director.
Xin took the reins at ETSD in May after working for more than a decade in computational engineering at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). As a Laboratory Fellow and technical group leader at PNNL, Xin elevated her team’s cutting-edge research exploring the basic properties and manufacturing processes of lightweight, functional materials to improve the performance of energy systems.
She performed complex multi-physics simulations of lightweight automotive materials, nuclear materials, carbon capture systems, fuel cells, and armor systems, among other applications, and she received the PNNL Director’s Award for Exceptional Engineering Achievement, the University of Michigan Alumni Society Merit Award, and an R&D100 award for her research. Xin has published more than 170 articles in peer-reviewed journals and authored 10 books or book chapters.
The new division director says she was attracted by the “big things” at ORNL such as neutron scattering, exascale computing, materials science advancements, and engineering successes in additive manufacturing, vehicle technologies, and building efficiencies.
Just a few weeks into her new position at ORNL, Xin said she is looking forward to getting to know ETSD in a holistic way. “I want to grow the division by growing its groups, and to grow those groups by strengthening their capabilities,” she said. “I want to continue our work linking ORNL’s tremendous strength in fundamental research and computational science to what we’re doing in ETSD, and to serve as a bridge to other lab organizations.”
Xin had an interest in science and engineering at an early age, growing up in a family of college professors—her father taught chemical engineering and her mother taught metallurgy. After earning her undergraduate degree in naval architecture and ocean engineering at China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Xin went to the University of Michigan for her graduate work. She earned master’s degrees both in mechanical engineering and naval architecture and marine engineering, and she went on to earn a doctorate in the latter with a focus on computational mechanics.
She began her professional career at the Edison Welding Institute in Columbus, Ohio, working on residual stress and distortion control for a US Navy shipbuilding project. But Xin quickly realized that she wanted to scale her studies to relate the intrinsic microstructural characteristics of materials to their macroscopic properties.
“We didn’t realize it at the time, but what we were doing with computational mechanics was the beginning of a research area we now know as integrated computational materials engineering,” Xin said. “We link the chemistry and processing information of different materials to their microstructure-level heterogeneities and to the performance of the engineering components.”
She moved on to Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus after a year at Edison, and then in 2004 she accepted a position in the Computational Sciences and Mathematics Division at PNNL in Richland, Washington.
At PNNL, “management was a very organic path for me. As we built up our capabilities, we needed more and more people and we also needed representation for our work. I stepped into that role to give us a voice,” she said.
Xin is looking forward to continuing her role as a mentor to young researchers. “I’ve been through the ranks as a scientist, and I know the challenges. I want to help our early career scientists, to share my experience and lessons learned, and to lend them a hand,” Xin added.
“The challenge for me here will be to rebalance into a management role from my former work focused on science,” she said. “I’ll be doing more of the work I now enjoy: helping others succeed.”
It is not an entirely new role for Xin. At PNNL and as an adjunct professor at Washington State University where she taught engineering elasticity, Xin advised young researchers and served on the dissertation committee for several doctoral students.
Outside the lab, Xin likes to spend time with family, including a 17-year-old son who is a rising high school senior and a 20-year-old daughter who is studying finance at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Xin also likes to cross-stitch, and even has some framed handiwork from her college days hanging on the walls at home. “I like to work with my hands in my spare time. I think I take after my father in that regard—he used to do carpentry as a hobby,” she added.
What has impressed Xin the most so far at ORNL? “The enthusiasm I see wherever I go. There is enthusiasm for science and new ideas here. I just met with a young scientist working under a fellowship program in the division, and I loved hearing her excitement about the work she’s doing. I’m looking forward to hearing and learning more new ideas.”
