Science Highlights 2017
Science Highlights feature awards and noteworthy scientific achievements at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
! Click on an issue date to see the Science Highlight headlines and link to the articles.
January 18, 2017
- Travis Tenner wins DHS Early Career Award
- Jaqueline Kiplinger given Distinguished Alumna Award
- High Performance Computing honored for industry collaboration in HPCwire Awards
- Sebastian Deffner awarded Leon Heller Postdoc Publication Prize
- Next-Gen Bioinformatics for the masses
- Prototype proves design concepts for plutonium electromagnetic isotope separator
- Converting sugars into hydrocarbon fuels
- LANL and industrial partners develop clean energy technologies
- Advances in metasurfaces
- First characterization of the lateral atomic structure of deformation twins in magnesium
- Studying nucleosynthesis using high-powered lasers
- Preparation of a fully dense copper/tungsten composite for mesoscale material science
- Modeling the dynamics of the Greenland Ice Sheet
February 22, 2017
- John Yeager wins Presidential Early Career Award
- George “Rusty” Gray elected to National Academy of Engineering
- Nathan Mara recognized with a Young Researcher Award
- Brad Ramshaw selected for Lee Oscheroff Richardson Science Prize
- Joanne Wendelberger honored as the W. J. Youden Memorial Address Speaker
- R. Picard, M. Hamada, G. Hemphill, and R. Hackenberg receive Søren Bisgaard Award
- Whole genome relationships among Francisella bacteria of diverse origin
- Development of the capability to measure neutron total cross sections
- Tritium science for the ITER project
- Studies reveal new understanding of the Jemez Mountain volcanic field
- Unusual resistivity-temperature relationship found in high temperature superconductors
- The effect of distribution of a second phase on dynamic damage in alloys
- First Entropy Engine quantum random number generator reaches the market
- First content drift measurement for references to web pages made in scientific articles
March 29, 2017
- Jaqueline Kiplinger receives International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry Award
- Ferrier, Zylstra, and Myers win Postdoctoral Distinguished Performance Awards
- Inkret, Junghans, Lookman, Thompson win Postdoctoral Distinguished Mentor Awards
- X-ray crystal protein structure helps elucidate function
- Fuel kernel coating technology developed for self-regulating nuclear reactors
- LANSCE cold neutron source enables first neutron phase-contrast imaging
- Photophysical pathways in open-shell actinide molecules
- Understanding the multi-scale problem of hydraulic fracturing
- Exploiting self-assembling copolymers for light-harvesting and energy transfer
- Machine learning provides insights into amorphization of irradiated pyrochlores
- First test of an aerogel Cherenkov detector to characterize the Cygnus x-ray source
- Evaluating the risk for local Zika transmission across the eastern United States
April 26, 2017
- Jaqueline Kiplinger chosen for the Violet Diller Professional Excellence Award
- Eric Brown and James Foley recognized with TMS awards
- Ning Xu chairs American Chemical Society Central New Mexico Local Section
- Andrew Baker receives Bill N. Baron Fellowship for work in clean energy generation
- Joe Thompson named IOP Reviewer of the Year
- Accessible model supports public health decision-making for disease control
- Nanoscale chemical microscopy capability installed
- Unique characterization capabilities for understanding plutonium aging
- Novel homogeneous catalyst challenges a long-standing paradigm
- Structures and stability of an uncommon oxidation state of uranium oxides
- Controlling strain in new functional materials with tunable and enhanced properties
- Accessing 3-D microstructural data on model deformation of polycrystalline materials
- Dual axis neutron imaging diagnostics deployed at the National Ignition Facility
- Topological quantum electrodynamics explored in the graphene family
May 31, 2017
- NNSA Defense Programs Awards of Excellence presented
- Developing autonomous particle accelerators that tune themselves
- Lab hosts Sequencing, Finishing, and Analysis in the Future conference
- Archiving project preserves and standardizes critical weapons data
- New method measures plutonium for nuclear forensics applications
- Tuberculosis field test for cattle
- Combining graph and quantum theories to calculate electronic structure of systems
- Using pressure to enhance the properties of lead-free hybrid perovskite
- Influence of dielectric environment on excitons in atomically thin semiconductors
- Coupled experimental and computational studies enable materials damage prediction
- Pulse dilation photomultiplier tube improves temporal resolution
June 28
- James Boncella named Fellow of the American Chemical Society
- Michael Hamada elected as a Fellow of the American Society for Quality
- Snelson, Viswanathan, and Wohletz named Geological Society of America Fellows
- Stacy Copp receives University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship
- Albright, Fernandes, Freeman, Losko, Rieck, Yang win Lab’s Science in “3” Awards
- First synthesis and characterization of the actinium aquo ion
- Method reduces computational cost to characterize subsurface geologic heterogeneity
- Advanced lasers simulate extreme environment of icy satellite impacts
- Ra’anan Tobey named Rosen Scholar
- Synthetic shape tuning controls blinking suppression for two colors in “seeded” tetrapods
- Study of damage in gallium-stabilized δ-plutonium stored at cryogenic temperatures
- Muon detector developed for subsurface borehole imaging
- HIV persists in macrophages during antiretroviral therapy
July 26
- Laboratory innovations chosen as R&D 100 Award Finalists
- Rangachary Mukundan named Electrochemical Society Fellow
- Cortney Kreller garners Electrochemical Society’s Wagner Award
- Nancy Jo Nicholas and Martyn Swinhoe receive INMM nuclear safeguards awards
- Herbert Van de Sompel honored with 2017 Paul Evan Peters Award
- Vamshi Chillara given Laboratory’s Postdoc Experimental Publication Prize
- Ray Newell wins the Richard P. Feynman Innovation Prize
- Antonio Redondo appointed Adjunct Professor
- Petr Chylek receives van de Hulst Award
- Brian Weaver elected Section Chair of the American Statistical Association
- Analysis of highly expressed small RNA in Yersinia pestis
- Archiving and preserving historical radiochemical data
- Trinity supercomputer partition merge increases classified computing capability
- Using light to align magnetic atoms in colloidal nanocrystals
- First NIF experiment with a double shell capsule target configuration
- Searching for dark photons with the SeaQuest spectrometer
- Nanoindentation explains plasticity and shear stress for fragile molecular crystals
August 30
- Joanne Wendelberger receives the William G. Hunter Award
- Bruce Carlsten, Dinh Nguyen and Richard Sheffield win Free-Electron Laser Prize
- A. Balatsky and J. Lashley chosen for editorial board of Physical Review Materials
- A. Aiken selected to chair American Association for Aerosol Research’s working group
- John Gordon named Invited Fellow of Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science
- Distinguishing virulent from harmless bacteria could aid biological surveillance
- Sigma Division provides 24/7 manufacturing operations
- Accurate prompt fission neutron spectrum measurements produced at LANSCE
- Developing a protactinium/uranium radiochronometry capability for nuclear forensics
- Novel dual-pulsed laser deposition system for improved versatility in thin film research
- Three-dimensional upwelling pathways in the Southern Ocean
- Robust pressure management strategies for geologic carbon dioxide sequestration
- Quasi-phase shift in nanoconfined water observed
- Using density functional theory to examine defects in unalloyed delta-plutonium
- Multi-laboratory assessment verifies reaction history accuracy from past nuclear events
- Evaluating the role of coherent delocalized phonon-like modes in DNA cyclization
September 27
- Hou-Tong Chen elected Fellow of The Optical Society
- Fontes, Htoon, Kawano, Lewellen, Smilowitz, Trugman and Zapf named APS Fellows
- Burton, Doorn, Dubey and Lookman chosen as Laboratory Fellows
- Entrepreneurial Fellows Chillara, Kubicek-Sutherland, Kumar, and Mudunuru selected
- Federal Laboratory Consortium honors dfnWorks and EDGE Bioinformatics innovations
- Genomic characterization of unusual V. cholerae strains with a single chromosome
- Large scale synthesis of energetic material re-establishes a vital capability for NNSA
- Field deployable aerosol mass spectrometer provides forensic capability for national security
- New capabilities for surface science studies of plutonium developed
- Characterizing uranium particles
- Detecting music festivals with satellite-based synthetic aperture radar
- Materials science university outreach workshop fosters research opportunities
- First room temperature colossal magnetoresistance demonstrated at THz frequencies
- New technique breaks materials while collecting 3-D x-ray images
- Neutrino research moves forward with DUNE
October 25
- Aditya Mohite named 2017 Resonate Award winner
- Eight Laboratory innovations honored with R&D 100 Awards
- Xu, Meyers, Chamberlin, Leibman, Yoshida, Sansinena win NNSA Sustainability Award
- Jeanne Fair edits e-book about biothreats and how to reduce them
- Using artificial neural networks to design better biofuels
- Predicting first-passage times in sparse discrete fracture networks
- X-ray laser experiments show that scientists have overestimated meteor sizes
- Discovery of boron on Mars sheds light on its past environment
- Atomic-level observations reveal how low-cost fuel cell catalysts work
- Advanced formalism enhances neutron counting capability for nuclear safeguards
- Neutron capture measurements using DANCE improve cross section calculations
- David Andersson named lead of DOE consortium focus area
- Dynamic material science community offers recommendations for MaRIE
- Emergent Hall physics in 2-D quantum materials combines Hall effects of matter and light