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Deborah Frincke, one of the nation’s preeminent computer scientists and cybersecurity experts, serves as associate laboratory director of ORNL’s National Security Science Directorate. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

From the helm of a one-of-a-kind organization that brings nuclear fusion and fission expertise together to pave the way to expanding carbon-free energy, Kathy McCarthy can trace the first step of her engineering career back to

Growing up in the heart of the American automobile industry near Detroit, Oak Ridge National Laboratory materials scientist Mike Kirka was no stranger to manufacturing.

As program manager for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Package Testing Program, Oscar Martinez enjoys finding and fixing technical issues.

Chuck Kessel was still in high school when he saw a scientist hold up a tiny vial of water and say, “This could fuel a house for a whole year.”

Planning for a digitized, sustainable smart power grid is a challenge to which Suman Debnath is using not only his own applied mathematics expertise, but also the wider communal knowledge made possible by his revival of a local chapter of the IEEE professional society.

For over half a century, Robert Compton has been a celebrated experimentalist and inspirational leader and teacher in the fields of physics and chemistry. Compton came to work at ORNL's Health Sciences Research Division in 1965 after receiving his doctorate in physics from the University of Tennessee.

Sheldon Datz's 50-year career as an innovator in the fields of chemistry and atomic physics at ORNL was defined by his knack for seeing the big picture and his ability to synthesize and expand upon developments across diverse disciplines.

Systems biologist Paul Abraham uses his fascination with proteins, the molecular machines of nature, to explore new ways to engineer more productive ecosystems and hardier bioenergy crops.

In the search to create materials that can withstand extreme radiation, Yanwen Zhang, a researcher at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, says that materials scientists must think outside the box.