News

Four ORNL scientists started their professional careers as staff scientists in the Distinguished Staff Fellowship program, a highly competitive, prestigious program for young scientists to begin a lifetime vocation in research at the lab.

Building innovations from ORNL will be on display in Washington, D.C. on the National Mall June 7 to June 9, 2024, during the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Innovation Housing Showcase. For the first time, ORNL’s real-time building evaluator was demonstrated outside of a laboratory setting and deployed for building construction. 

Early career scientist Frankie White's was part of two major isotope projects at the same time he was preparing to be a father. As co-lead on a team that achieved the first synthesis and characterization of a radium compound using single crystal X-ray diffraction and part of a team that characterized the properties of promethium, White reflects on the life-changing timeline at work, and at home. 

John Lagergren, a staff scientist in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Plant Systems Biology group, is using his expertise in applied math and machine learning to develop neural networks to quickly analyze the vast amounts of data on plant traits amassed at ORNL’s Advanced Plant Phenotyping Laboratory.

Vanderbilt University and ORNL announced a partnership to develop training, testing and evaluation methods that will accelerate the Department of Defense’s adoption of AI-based systems in operational environments.

Scientists have uncovered the properties of a rare earth element that was first discovered 80 years ago at the very same laboratory, opening a new pathway for the exploration of elements critical in modern technology, from medicine to space travel.

A team of scientists led by ORNL found an unconventional way to improve catalysts made of more than one material. The solution demonstrates a path to designing catalysts with greater activity, selectivity and stability.

Researchers at ORNL are developing battery technologies to fight climate change in two ways, by expanding the use of renewable energy and capturing airborne carbon dioxide. 

ORNL researchers have produced the most comprehensive power outage dataset ever compiled for the United States. This dataset, showing electricity outages from 2014-22 in the 50 U.S. states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, details outages at 15-minute intervals for up to 92% of customers for the eight-year period.

Mohamad Zineddin hopes to establish an interdisciplinary center of excellence for nuclear security at ORNL, combining critical infrastructure assessment and protection, risk mitigation, leadership in nuclear security, education and training, nuclear security culture and resilience strategies and techniques.