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The seven entrepreneurs for Cohort 2024

Seven entrepreneurs comprise the next cohort of Innovation Crossroads, a DOE Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program node based at ORNL. The program provides energy-related startup founders from across the nation with access to ORNL’s unique scientific resources and capabilities, as well as connect them with experts, mentors and networks to accelerate their efforts to take their world-changing ideas to the marketplace.

Exploding stars, a glowing light

Scientists have determined that a rare element found in some of the oldest solids in the solar system, such as meteorites, and previously thought to have been forged in supernova explosions, actually predate such cosmic events, challenging long-held theories about its origin.

This is an image of a man sitting at a computer with three screens.

Researchers conduct largest, most accurate molecular dynamics simulations to date of two million correlated electrons using Frontier, the world’s fastest supercomputer. The simulation, which exceed an exaflop using full double precision, is 1,000 times greater in size and speed than any quantum chemistry simulation of it's kind.

This photo is of three men sitting around a laptop computer that happens to be working on cybersecurity testing equipment.

A newly established internship between ORNL and Maryville College is bringing cybersecurity careers to a local liberal arts college. The internship was established by a Maryville College alumni who recently joined ORNL. 

Digital image of molecules would look like. There are 10 clusters of these shapes in grey, red and blue with a teal blue background

Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists have developed a method leveraging artificial intelligence to accelerate the identification of environmentally friendly solvents for industrial carbon capture, biomass processing, rechargeable batteries and other applications.

Honors & Awards in white with a green background with an oak leaf underneath

ORNL's Guang Yang and Andrew Westover have been selected to join the first cohort of DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy Inspiring Generations of New Innovators to Impact Technologies in Energy 2024 program. The program supports early career scientists and engineers in their work to convert disruptive ideas into impactful energy technologies. 

Colorful circles with symbols of Vc, Vh and Vt inside. Blue, Orange and Pink

Researchers used quantum simulations to obtain new insights into the nature of neutrinos — the mysterious subatomic particles that abound throughout the universe — and their role in the deaths of massive stars.

Woman is standing at podium holding a gavel in the air.

In May, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge and Brookhaven national laboratories co-hosted the 15th annual International Particle Accelerator Conference, or IPAC, at the Music City Center in Nashville, Tennessee. 

Man in blue shirt and grey pants holds laptop and poses next to a green plant in a lab.

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.

Red background fading into black from top to bottom. Over top the background are 20 individual rectangles lined up in three rows horizontally with a red and blue line moving through it.

ORNL scientists develop a sample holder that tumbles powdered photochemical materials within a neutron beamline exposing more of the material to light for increased photo-activation and better photochemistry data capture.