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Julie Smith

It may take a village to raise a child, according to the old proverb, but it takes an entire team of highly trained scientists and engineers to install and operate a state-of-the-art, exceptionally complex ion microprobe. Just ask Julie Smith, a nuclear security scientist at the Depa...

Academic researchers look to Argonne’s Mira supercomputer to better understand boiling phenomena, bubble formation and two-phase bubbly flow inside nuclear reactors. Credit: Igor Bolotnov/North Carolina State University

The intrinsic beauty of bubbles—those thin watery spheres filled with air or other gases—has long captured the imagination of children and adults alike. But bubbles are also a linchpin of nuclear engineering, helping to explain the natural world, predict safety issues and improve the...

Shaheen Dewji, radiological scientist in the Center for Radiation Protection Knowledge within the Environmental Sciences Division at ORNL.

Having begun her career at the lab in the nuclear nonproliferation and radiation safeguards area, Shaheen Dewji is leveraging her expertise to help expand the work of the Center for Radiation Protection Knowledge (CRPK)—a unique organization led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory that ...

A tetradentate ligand selects americium (Am, depicted by green spheres) over europium (Eu, blue spheres). Red indicates oxygen atoms and purple, nitrogen atoms that are the key to the ligand’s selectivity. Image credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S.
After used nuclear fuel is removed from a reactor, it emits heat for decades and remains radioactive for thousands of years. The used fuel is a mixture of major actinides (uranium, plutonium), fission products (mainly assorted metals, including lanthanides) and minor actinides (i.e....
Eugene Dumitrescu, Ben Lawrie, Matthew Feldman, and Jordan Hachtel (from left) have conducted investigations aimed at controlling the dissipative nature of quantum systems and materials. The cathodoluminescence microscope used in their work appears at rig
Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are conducting fundamental physics research that will lead to more control over mercurial quantum systems and materials. Their studies will enable advancements in quantum computing, sensing, simulation, and mater...
Vincent Paquit

Leveraging his expertise in image processing, sensors, and machine learning, Vincent Paquit is devising a control system for additive manufacturing to produce 3D-printed parts that function as well as conventionally produced objects. Paquit’s research sits at the junction of manufacturing technol...

Composites scientist and engineer Vlastimil Kunc with the latest large-scale 3Dprinter at the MDF.

Vlastimil Kunc grew up in a family of scientists where his natural curiosity was encouraged—an experience that continues to drive his research today in polymer composite additive manufacturing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “I’ve been interested in the science of composites si...

A newly discovered material called BiMn3Cr4O12, represented by the crystal structure, exhibits a rare combination of magnetic and electrical properties. The arrows illustrate the spin moments for the elements chromium (Cr) in yellow and manganese (Mn) in
Materials used in electronic devices are typically chosen because they possess either special magnetic or special electrical properties. However, an international team of researchers using neutron scattering recently identified a rare material that has both. In their paper publis...
ORNL Director Thomas Zacharia (center, seated) visited Robertsville Middle School to present a check in support of the school’s CubeSat efforts.

Last November a team of students and educators from Robertsville Middle School in Oak Ridge and scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory submitted a proposal to NASA for their Cube Satellite Launch Initiative in hopes of sending a student-designed nanosatellite named RamSat into...