Staff Awards: 2012
Neutron Sciences Staff Receive 2012 ORNL Awards Night Honors
Each year, ORNL contracting manager UT-Battelle, LLC, announces Awards Night honors for outstanding employees. The awards are presented at the annual Awards Night celebration in November.
Wei-Ren Chen
Early Career Award for Scientific Accomplishment
For discoveries and advances in the understanding of polyelectrolytes from molecular to mesoscopic length scales, by combining molecular synthesis, neutron scattering, analytical theory, and computer modeling.
George Dodson
Operations Excellence
For his persistence and innovation in establishing the foundation for reliability-centered operations and maintenance management at the Spallation Neutron Source and achieving a world-leading operational reliability of ≥ 90%.
Members of the team receiving an R&D 100 Award for the wavelength-shifting scintillator detector are shown with their invention. They are (from left) Ron Cooper (retired), Rick Riedel, Jason Hodges, Cai-Lin Wang, and Yacouba Diawara, all of NScD; Herschel Workman, PartTec; Bruce Hannan, NScD; and Craig Kline, PartTec. Not pictured are Lloyd Clonts and Lowell Crow.
ORNL team wins R&D 100 award for wavelength-shifting scintillator detector
A team of eight scientists and technicians in the Neutron Sciences Directorate has won a prestigious R&D 100 Award from R&D Magazine for developing a highly efficient new detector system that helps take pressure off dwindling worldwide supplies of 3He as an active neutron converter.
The award was for development of the wavelength-shifting scintillator neutron detector (WLS), which uses 6Li as a neutron convertor instead of the conventional 3He. The annual R&D 100s, now in their 50th year, recognize the 100 most technologically significant products introduced into the market over the past year.
The award goes to Lloyd Clonts, Ronald Cooper (retired), Lowell Crow, Yacouba Diawara, Bruce Hannan, Jason Hodges, Richard Riedel, and Cai-Lin Wang of NScD. The team developed the detector in partnership with PartTec, Ltd., of Bloomington, Indiana. The award is one of nine R&D 100s won at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2012.
“The detector has been in development for 8 years,” said Diawara, the detector group leader at NScD. “When we started this project, there was no concern about the availability of 3He.
Wei-Ren Chen (with SNS site in the background).
Former Shull Fellow Chen Wins Prestigious Early Career Award
Wei-Ren Chen is among four ORNL staff members selected for five-year awards under the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science Early Career Research Program. The award was announced May 8 and is for $2.5 million over five years. Chen’s research will be funded by the Office of Science's Office of Basic Energy Sciences.
Chen, a former Shull Fellow, is currently a research and development staff member in the Biology and Soft Matter Division's Structure and Dynamics of Soft Matter Group. His proposed research project, “Multiphasic Soft Colloids: From Fundamentals to Application of Energy Sustainability,” entails developing a fundamental understanding of the structure, dynamics, and interaction of multiphasic soft colloidal systems for the design of novel materials with desirable properties.
Exploitation of these colloids as a platform for the development of new functional materials for energy applications requires quantitative understanding of the relationship among the chemical structure, interaction, and spatial arrangement of these systems in their collective functional state.
Chen’s research will use a synergistic approach, integrating material design and synthesis at ORNL’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, advanced neutron scattering tools at the Spallation Neutron Source, and multiscale simulations using the computational resources at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility.
This year awards were given to 68 recipients from a pool of 850 across the country. The five-year awards are designed to bolster the nation's scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the crucial early career years when many scientists do their most formative work. The awards are also aimed at providing incentives for scientists to focus on mission research areas that are a high priority for the Department of Energy.
Mook Receives 2012 H. Kamerlingh Onnes Prize, Recognized for 45 years of Service as ORNL Researcher
Herb Mook
Herbert Mook, a pioneer in neutron scattering science, was recognized by the Neutron Sciences Directorate for his selection for the 2012 Heike Kamerlingh Onnes Prize for research in superconductivity and for more than 45 years as an ORNL researcher. The Onnes prize is awarded every three years for experimental research in superconductivity.
Herb is recognized internationally for his pioneering work in magnetism and particularly for his insights into the roles of magnetism and spin fluctuations in high-temperature superconductivity. A leader in advancing the field of neutron scattering as an experimental method, he holds several patents for neutron instrumentation and has developed a number of scattering techniques.
Herb came to ORNL upon receiving his PhD from Harvard in 1965. He served as scientific director for SNS for several years and is currently the senior advisor to the Neutron Sciences Directorate.
He has published more than 55 papers that have at least 55 citations and has been cited more than 10,000 times overall. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Neutron Scattering Society of America. He was awarded the Shull Prize by the Neutron Scattering Society of America in 2010.
“He has published extensively, generously shared his talents as a mentor, and rendered valuable service to the research community,” ORNL Director Thom Mason said of Mook. “Herb is one of the most highly respected scientists in the field of neutron scattering and condensed matter physics, and his contributions to magnetism are unequaled.”
Smith Elected NSSA Fellow
Greg Smith
The Biology and Soft Matter Division's Gregory Smith has been elected a 2012 fellow of the Neutron Scattering Society of America (NSSA). His citation reads "For pioneering neutron scattering investigations of soft-condensed matter systems." Smith is leader of the Structure and Dynamics of Soft Matter Group.
Through the NSSA Fellowship Program, the NSSA recognizes members who have made significant contributions to the neutron scattering community in North America.
Shull Fellow Christianson Named 2012 Young Scientist
Andy Christianson of ORNL’s Neutron Sciences Directorate has been named the winner of a “2012 Young Scientist” award by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. Christianson was the winner for the IUPAP Commission on the Structure and Dynamics of Condensed Matter.
The IUPAP Young Scientist prize recognizes exceptional achievement by scientists at a relatively early career stage. The recipient “is expected to have displayed significant achievement and exceptional promise for future achievement” in experimental, theoretical, or computational physics. The award includes a prize of 1,000 Euro and a medal, which will be presented at the American Physical Society meeting in February in Boston.
Christianson’s citation reads “For outstanding contributions to the study of magnetic structure and of dynamics of strongly correlated electron systems including heavy fermion, magnetoelectric, and Fe-based superconducting systems.”
Christianson came to ORNL in 2006 as a Shull Fellow in the Neutron Sciences Directorate and joined the ORNL staff in 2009. He has been an author on several frequently cited papers, including high-impact articles on iron-based superconductors published in Nature, Nature Physics, and Physical Review Letters. He is an author on 66 scientific publications.
He holds an MS and a PhD in Physics from Colorado State University and a BS in physics from the University of Northern Iowa.
IUPAP was established in 1922 in Brussels. Its stated mission is to assist in the worldwide development of physics, to foster international cooperation in physics, and to help in the application of physics toward solving problems of concern to humanity.
