Feature Articles

Behind every self-driving laboratory at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a team people most never see. Facilities and Operations workers are building and maintaining the infrastructure that makes autonomous science possible. More than a dozen self-driving labs operate at ORNL, placing the Tennessee national lab among the first research institutions in the world to create this autonomous laboratory model at scale.

A Sandia National Laboratories engineer helped lead efforts to develop and publish a standard for human readiness during technology development. 

The first thing people notice about Tanner Mauseth is his height. At 6 feet, 8 inches, he played Division I football for the University of Idaho while he majored in applied physics.

Plutonium is one of the most complex elements in the periodic table. First synthesized and isolated in 1940 by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, plutonium has been studied closely for more than eight decades. It’s most often associated with its role in nuclear security, but it’s also vital to nuclear power, where it is produced in reactors and can be recycled as fuel. Despite plutonium’s importance, some of its most fundamental behaviors remain a mystery.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory physicist Jason Newby leads the lab’s neutrino research efforts and is a founder and deputy spokesperson of the COHERENT collaboration at the Spallation Neutron Source. In 2017, COHERENT achieved the first detection of coherent elastic neutrino–nucleus scattering, a decades-predicted interaction that opened new ways to test the Standard Model and support major neutrino experiments. Newby also works on potential neutrino-based tools for nuclear security and has built a strong pipeline for students and early-career researchers. Raised in rural Tennessee, he is committed to expanding opportunities for young scientists from small schools and communities.

ORNL has named Brian Anderson director of the Office of Institutional Strategic Planning, where he will help shape the laboratory’s long-term research strategy and priorities. Anderson most recently led ORNL’s Enrichment Science and Engineering Division, advancing key nuclear science and national security initiatives.

A new concept flight test vehicle called Aires Tide will be on display at the National Mall starting June 25. The 11-foot-tall, 3D-printed, AI-designed prototype will be stationed alongside other American innovations at the Great American State Fair, part of the Freedom 250 celebration.

Undergraduate seniors at Tennessee Tech University work with the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory through the Capstone course, a two-semester program that pairs students with industry clients to tackle real-world technical challenges.

Scientific computing experts at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have selected the first nine research projects that will run on Discovery, the nation’s next flagship supercomputer, slated for deployment in 2028. The projects will be developed through the Discovery Center for Accelerated Application Readiness program at ORNL’s Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility. The program is designed to ensure that a suite of leading-edge scientific applications is optimized and ready to deliver results as soon as Discovery becomes operational.