News Releases

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory developed Motor Decide, a Super Intelligence-driven platform that helps manufacturers compare electric motor technologies based on performance, material availability, supply chain stability, technology maturity and resilience to changing market conditions.

M. Parans Paranthaman, an expert in solid-state chemistry and materials science at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been named R&D World’s 2026 Researcher of the Year. The honor recognizes his career translating fundamental materials research into practical technologies with real-world applications. Paranthaman, an ORNL Corporate Fellow and UT-Battelle Distinguished Inventor, joined ORNL in 1993. He has authored more than 500 peer-reviewed publications and possesses 65 U.S. patents.

Tom King, a longtime leader in electric grid research at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been named director of the Next-Generation Data Centers Institute (NGDCI). The institute aligns ORNL’s capabilities across computing, energy systems and applied engineering to provide the scientific foundation for the next generation of affordable, efficient, reliable AI data centers integrated with the U.S. electric grid.

ORNL developed JACC, an open-source framework that enables Julia applications to run efficiently on CPUs and GPUs from multiple hardware vendors using a single codebase. The software improves performance portability for high-performance computing systems and reduces the need for architecture-specific code.

Rigoberto Advincula, a polymer researcher at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a Governor’s Chair Professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has received the American Filtration and Separations Society’s Frank Tiller Award at FILTCON26 in Pittsburgh. The honor recognizes his lifetime leadership and scientific impact in fluid-particle separation, citing advances in new materials, 3D-printed membranes, and smart separation surfaces. A highly decorated fellow of multiple scientific societies, Advincula has authored 513 publications and holds 15 issued patents, with additional patents pending.