July 08 Issue - Employee Monthly Magazine
Winning an R&D 100 Award
Innovation meets entry submission
Above is the cover for Compositional Analysis by Raman-Integrated Spark Spectroscopy (CARISS), which garnered Roger Wiens and his team a 2003 R&D 100 Award.
Bryce Tappan and his brother grew up interested in science and were "partners in crime for all the backyard experiments," he recalls. So when Tappan, a technical staff member in Explosive Applications and Special Projects, learned he had won an R&D 100 Award, his brother, now a staff member at Sandia National Laboratories, was among the first with whom he shared the good news.
Tappan's team took home the 2005 award in the process category for nanoFOAM. When his postdoc mentor encouraged him to submit the entry, Tappan wasn't convinced his team had a chance but decided it was worth a shot. "There wasn't much anticipation, as I hadn't counted on winning anyway," he said.
Winning the award came as no surprise to Lab staff member Nely Trintinella Padial-Collins of Computational Physics and Methods. Her team also won in 2005 for CartaBlanca. Though she admits the submission itself was a lot of work, Padial-Collins said the award "is certainly a top accomplishment because it is recognition of our work by the research community."
Tappan and Padial-Collins are in good company. Since 1978, the Laboratory has won 105 R&D 100 Awards. In an effort to oversee entry preparation and to give submissions a distinct look, several years ago the Laboratory introduced an internal process for the submission of R&D 100 Award entries.
Kim Sherwood of Los Alamos's Technology Transfer Division oversees the process and teams with various Lab organizations to ensure that all steps are completed and entries meet the budget and timeline for the competition.
"There is a call for proposals from the Technology Transfer Division," Sherwood explains. "Scientists who want to enter the competition prepare a rough draft to answer the competition questions. Writer-editors work with the scientists to complete and polish the written entry, designers work with entrants to create the covers, and then the entries are printed and submitted."
According to Lab researcher Craig Taylor, the process is rigorous. "The Lab assisted a great deal, but it still was up to us to write the entry and all supporting documentation," he said. Taylor led two winning R&D 100 teams: Drywash in 1997 and Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Resist Remover in 2001.
Kim Sherwood, R&D 100 Award coordinator in the Technology Transfer Division. Photo by Sandra Valdez
Thomas Claytor of Applied Engineering Technology led the team that won in 2003 in the instrumentation category for Flash CT. His previous team won an R&D 100 Award 20 years earlier for a high-temperature acoustic sensor for use in nuclear reactors.
One of the primary purposes for an R&D 100 Award entry, Claytor explains, is to introduce a technology or product that otherwise might take years to creep into the consciousness of the scientific and business community.
Scientist Roger Wiens of Space Science and Applications agrees that competing for an R&D 100 Award is a great opportunity to show some of the exciting scientific research the Lab is doing. Wiens's team won in 2003 for Compositional Analysis by Raman-Integrated Spark Spectroscopy. The R&D 100 Award is one of Wiens's better achievements, he said. "We of course mentioned the award in subsequent proposals to potential sponsors," he added.
Receiving the award itself can be a unique experience. Claytor's team received its R&D 100 Award at a ceremony at Navy Pier in Chicago. Thomas Sampson, a retired technical staff member, received his award in 1988 at a formal dinner presentation at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
"First time in a tux since I was married," said Sampson. "Pretty impressive ceremony. Several Lab bigwigs attended because the Lab received the most awards of any organization."
Sampson and his teammates won in the category of sampling systems and monitors for Nuclear Material Solution Assay System. The R&D 100 Award, he said, ranks near the top of his career accomplishments because he competed against what he considers to be the best and the brightest.
With success, though, comes frustration, as he said, "Never could figure out how to get the award plaque away from the Lab's PR people so we could put it in our group conference room."
Editor's note: This is an excerpt from an article published in the June 2008 issue of R&D Magazine by Mig Owens
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