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Not only did ORNL take home top honors at the 2024 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC24), but the lab’s computing staff also shared career advice and expertise with students eager to enter the world of supercomputing.

Scientists at ORNL are using advanced germanium detectors to explore fundamental questions in nuclear physics, such as the nature of neutrinos and the matter-antimatter imbalance. The ongoing LEGEND project, an international collaboration, aims to discover neutrinoless double beta decay, which could significantly advance the understanding of the universe.

Hugh O’Neill’s lifelong fascination with the complexities of the natural world drives his research at ORNL, where he’s using powerful neutron beams to dive deep into the microscopic realm of biological materials and unlock secrets for better production of domestic biofuels and bioproducts.

Massimiliano (Max) Lupo Pasini, an R&D data scientist from ORNL, was awarded the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center’s High Performance Computing Achievement Award for High Impact Scientific Achievement for his work in “Groundbreaking contributions to scientific machine learning, particularly through the development of HydraGNN.”

Melissa Cregger of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineers, or PECASE, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding early-career scientists and engineers. 

Scientists designing the world’s first controlled nuclear fusion power plant, ITER, needed to solve the problem of runaway electrons, negatively charged particles in the soup of matter in the plasma within the tokamak, the magnetic bottle intended to contain the massive energy produced. Simulations performed on Summit, the 200-petaflop supercomputer at ORNL, could offer the first step toward a solution.

Phong Le is a computational hydrologist at ORNL who is putting his skills in hydrology, numerical modeling, machine learning and high-performance computing to work quantifying water-related risks for humans and the environment. 

ORNL’s annual workshop has become the premier forum for molten salt reactor, or MSR, collaboration and innovation, convening industry, academia and government experts to further advance MSR research and development. This year’s event attracted a record-breaking 365 participants from across the country, highlighting the momentum to bring MSRs online.

A research partnership between two Department of Energy national laboratories has accelerated inspection of additively manufactured nuclear components, and the effort is now expanding to inspect nuclear fuels.