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Arial view of the Atchafalaya Basin

In the wet, muddy places where America’s rivers and lands meet the sea, scientists from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are unearthing clues to better understand how these vital landscapes are evolving under climate change.

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.

Headshot of Clarice Phelps

Leadership Tennessee has named Clarice Phelps to its 2024–2025 Signature Program Class XI to collaborate with professionals statewide to address Tennessee’s most serious issues. 

5 people (boy, girl, boy, girl, boy) are standing holding an award.

Close on the heels of its fourth summer school, the Quantum Science Center, or QSC, hosted its second in-person all-hands meeting in early May. More than 150 scientists, engineers and support staff traveled from 17 institutions to review the QSC’s progress, examine existing priorities and brainstorm new short- and long-term research endeavors. 

Red tube holds a cluster of green and purple dots (hundreds of dots) while a long white line runs across the image, giving the appearance of waves.

An Oak Ridge National Laboratory team revealed how chemical species form in a highly reactive molten salt mixture of aluminum chloride and potassium chloride by unraveling vibrational signatures and observing ion exchanges. 

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Sara Martinez ensures the safety and longevity of aging structures at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, employing her engineering expertise to protect against natural disasters and extend the lifespan of critical facilities.

Four thermometers are pictured across the top of the image with an image of a city in the bottom left, with a color block version of that city in the bottom right.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed free data sets to estimate how much energy any building in the contiguous U.S. will use in 2100. These data sets provide planners a way to anticipate future energy needs as the climate changes.

Three team members looking at plants stand in front of a mountain scene, two are in orange safety vests.

When Oak Ridge National Laboratory's science mission takes staff off-campus, the lab’s safety principles follow. That’s true even in the high mountain passes of Washington and Oregon, where ORNL scientists are tracking a tree species — and where wildfires have become more frequent and widespread.