Newsmakers

NMT starts out fiscal year 1998 with a record amount of Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) funds, $2.76M. The projects are "PlutonIum Aging: Investigation of Changes in Weapon Alloys as a Function of Time," Principal Investigator (PI) Barbara Cort (NMT-5); "Development of a System for Endoscopic Imaging and Spectroscopy of Pit Interiors," PI Kirk Veirs (NMT-6); "Actinide Molecular Science: f-Electronic Structure in Synthesis, Spectroscopy, and Computation," PI Larry Avens (NMT 6); "Hydrothermal Combustible Waste Treatment Process," PI Laura Worl (NMT-6); "A New Paradigm in Separations: Molecular Recognition Membranes," PI Gordon Jarvinen (NMT-6); and "Salt Recycle in Support of Molten Salt Oxidation of 238Pu-Contaminated Combustible Waste," PI Kevin Ramsey (NMT-9). The third and fifth projects are in the category of competency development (CD) and are in their second and first years, respectively, of the five-year project duration.

Science and Technology winners for the second and final year of the Los Alamos Achievement Program are Kevin Ramsey (NMT-9), Louis Schulte (NMT-6), and Jacob Espinoza (NMT-9). This team was awarded in the area of program development for their work on aqueous scrap recovery of ²³⁸PuO₂. In the past two years this team has been responsible for demonstrating to our program sponsors at DOE that Los Alamos possesses the requisite expertise to bring on-line the capability for production-scale recovery of plutonium oxide for heat sources.

Michael D. Diener received his Ph.D. degree in May 1997 from Rice University. His thesis was entitled "Purification of Small Bandgap Fullerenes." Kirk Veirs served as Diener's mentor at Los Alamos while Diener was doing his thesis work.

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