The science targeted by FUTURE requires a variety of techniques, both experimental and modeling, along with the associated expertise for success. Our scientists lead the way, developing the research plan and spearheading the scientific directions
Blas Pedro Uberuaga (LANL), Director (and Thrust 2 Lead)
Blas Uberuaga, a graduate of the University of Washington, examines radiation damage in complex oxides and nanostructured materials using computer simulations at the atomic scale, with a particular focus on understanding how defect evolution impacts radiation tolerance in such systems. He is also performing research into materials discovery for scintillators. He has published over 300 papers that have been cited more than 30,000 times. In addition to being the Director of FUTURE, he is simulating the kinetic properties of defects relevant to coupled irradiation and corrosion behavior in materials. In his spare time, he maintains an award-winning website on the culture of the Basque people in northern Spain and southern France and enjoys the occasional woodworking project, writing stories, and drawing.
Peter Hosemann (UCB), Deputy Director (and Thrust 2 Lead)
Peter Hosemann, a graduate from the Montanuniversität Leoben in Austria, investigates the fundamentals of mechanical and environmental degradation mechanisms of materials in radiation environments. He has published more than 140 papers cited 1400 times. In addition of being the Deputy Director of FUTURE, he is chair of the Nuclear Engineering Department at UC Berkeley. In his spare time he leads the UC Berkeley Blacksmithing effort, is engaged in the solar car racing team CALSOL and is in the leadership of the Austrian Scientists and Scholars in North America, Bay Area chapter.
Mark Asta (UCB), Thrust 1 Lead
Mark Asta, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, uses electronic-structure and atomic-scale-simulation methods to study the chemical, structural and dynamic properties of materials interfaces. He has published over 350 papers that have been cited nearly 35,000 times. In addition to being the modeling co-thrust lead of FUTURE, he is involved in the development of high-throughput calculations and data science approaches in the context of computationally aided materials design. In his spare time, he enjoys cycling on the roads of rural Northern California.
Sandra Taylor (PNNL), Thrust 1 Lead
Sandra Taylor, a graduate of the University of Michigan, is an experimentalist studying the reactivity of solids at their interfaces with aqueous solutions to understand molecular-level processes controlling crystal growth, dissolution, and ion sorption onto surfaces. As part of the FUTURE project, she is characterizing and quantifying corrosion- and irradiation-induced chemical changes in materials using 3D atom probe tomography to describe the relevant fundamental mass transport phenomena. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking and traveling.
Farida Selim (BGSU), Thrust 2 Lead
Farida Selim is an expert on defects and solid state physics. She obtained her PhD in a joint program between Harvard and Alexandria University and published more than 100 peer review journal articles. She is known for inventing a new positron annihilation spectroscopy technique (Gamma Induced Positron Spectroscopy). In addition to her research on positron annihilation and defect studies, she has active research programs on wide band gap oxides to explore novel electronic phenomena as well as building new instrumentation for defect and luminescence studies. Her outreach activities span from providing research internships for high school students and undergraduates to serving on many international advisory committees.
Tiffany Kaspar (PNNL), Thrust 3 Lead
Tiffany Kaspar is a Senior Research Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Her research interests encompass the epitaxial growth (via molecular beam epitaxy or pulsed laser deposition) of metallic and metal oxide films to develop structure-property relationships such as dopant interactions, magnetic and electronic properties, and point and structural defects. For FUTURE, she applies her expertise to synthesize model films and multilayers that provide a well-defined platform to understand fundamental radiation and corrosion phenomena. She also participates in many STEM outreach activities, including STEM Ambassadors at PNNL. In her free time, she enjoys camping and hiking in the Pacific Northwest with her family.
Aaron Kohnert (LANL), Thrust 3 Lead
Aaron Kohnert is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. Aaron studies radiation damage effects in materials by applying mesoscale models of microstructural changes induced by extreme environment exposure. For the FUTURE project, he is developing a theoretical framework connecting point defect transport in irradiation environments to a linear elasticity approach to determine internal stress and strain states, allowing predictive models of mass transport near complex interfaces and boundaries under both thermal and irradiation conditions. In his spare time, he enjoys hiking.
Laurent Capolungo (LANL)
Laurent Capolungo, a graduate of the Georgia Institute of technology, studies microstructure evolutions in metals subjected to extreme environments (radiation, corrosion, temperature, stress). He has developed a series of simulation tools to predict materials response and their connection with their microstructures. He has published over 80 papers that have been cited more than 2,500 times. In addition to his role in FUTURE, he is leading efforts to use computer assisted material design for high temperature and high stress environments.
Edward Holby (LANL)
Edward (Ted) F. Holby, a graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studies electrochemical systems using multiscale and quantum chemical modeling approaches. His efforts have been predominantly in the fields of corrosion and electrocatalysis for energy applications such as hydrogen fuel cells. As part of FUTURE, he will be using computational methods to understand oxide passivation of alloy systems and the thermokinetics of point defects important for dissolution and oxidation corrosion processes under irradiation. In his spare time, Ted enjoys gardening, woodworking, cooking, roasting coffee, and exploring the mountain trails of the Southwest.
Djamel Kaoumi (NCSU)
Djamel Kaoumi is an associate professor of Nuclear Engineering at North Carolina State University specializing in radiation effects and degradation of structural alloys in nuclear reactor environments. He obtained his PhD from Penn State and his MS from University of Florida, both in Nuclear Engineering doing research in Nuclear Materials. His undergraduate degree in Physics was obtained in France where he comes from. His research interests revolve around developing a mechanistic understanding of microstructure property relationships in nuclear materials, with an emphasis on microstructure evolution under harsh environment (i.e. irradiation, high temperature, and mechanical stress) and how it can impact the macroscopic properties and performance. As part of FUTURE, he will contribute his expertise in radiation damage characterization particularly using in-situ irradiation in a TEM, a technique of predilection for him. In his spare time, he enjoys looking for fine ingredients and trying world cuisine recipes at home.
Nan Li (LANL)
Nan Li received his PhD degree from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University, College Station. Through utilizing in situ and ex situ mechanical straining, ion irradiation tests, he examines the interaction behavior of defects with various heterogeneous phase boundaries, and how such defect phenomena influence mechanical properties. He has over 90 peer-reviewed publications, two of which were awarded ScienceDirect TOP25 Hottest Articles in Materials Science. He has been awarded TMS Best Graduate Student Paper Award, ACTA Award and LANL Distinguished Postdoctoral Performance Award, LAAP Award and TMS Young Leader Professional Development Award.
Andrew Minor (UCB)
Andrew Minor is a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and also holds a joint appointment at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where he is the Facility Director of the National Center for Electron Microscopy in the Molecular Foundry. He received a BA in Economics and Mechanical Engineering from Yale University and his MS and PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from U.C. Berkeley. He has co-authored over 175 publications and presented over 130 invited talks on topics such as nanomechanics, lightweight alloy development, characterization of soft materials and in situ TEM technique development. His honors include the LBL Materials Science Division Outstanding Performance Award (2006 & 2010), the AIME Robert Lansing Hardy Award from TMS (2012) and the Burton Medal from the Microscopy Society of America (2015).
Raluca Scarlat (UCB)
Raluca Scarlat is an assistant professor at UC Berkeley, in the Department of Nuclear Engineering. Professor Scarlat has a PhD in Nuclear Engineering from UC Berkeley and a BS in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Cornell University. Raluca’s research focuses on chemistry, electrochemistry and physical chemistry of high-temperature inorganic fluids and their application to energy systems. She has experience in design and safety analysis of fluoride-salt-cooled high-temperature reactors (FHRs) and Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs), and high-temperature gas cooled reactors (HTGRs). Her research includes safety analysis, licensing and design of nuclear reactors and engineering ethics.
Daniel K. Schreiber (PNNL)
Daniel Schreiber joined PNNL in 2011 after completing his PhD in Materials Science from Northwestern University. His research applies high-resolution microscopy to study grain boundary chemistry in structural alloys and high temperature oxidation/corrosion phenomena. This work leverages site-specific, focused ion beam (FIB) – based specimen preparation methods and atom probe tomography (APT) to generate unique insights into the fundamental mechanisms controlling material degradation at the nanoscale. In his free time, Dan enjoys exploring wine country in the Pacific Northwest.
John Scully (UV)
John R. Scully is the Charles Henderson Endowed Chaired Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department Head of Materials Science and Engineering at UVA. His research focuses on investigating the metallurgical, interfacial, and surface film properties as well as environmental factors which combine to govern and regulate corrosion phenomena. He has published over 250 papers in this area which have been cited over 11,000 times. In his spare time, he is editor of CORROSION, The Journal of Science and Engineering.
Elizabeth Sooby (UTSA)
Dr. Elizabeth Sooby is an Associate Professor in the department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Dr. Sooby is an expert in fuels synthesis and testing, particularly uranium compound fabrication and high temperature oxidation testing. Prior to coming to UTSA in 2017, Dr. Sooby was appointed as a staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory where she also held a Seaborg Postdoctoral Fellowship in Actinide Science following graduation with her Ph.D. in Physics from Texas A&M in December 2014. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Millsaps College in Jackson, MS. She is the principle investigator of the Extreme Environments Materials Laboratory, a unique facility she developed at UTSA, which is a 2,000 square foot radiological laboratory space dedicated to nuclear materials fabrication and testing.
Yongqiang Wang (LANL)
Yongqiang Wang is Director of the Ion Beam Materials Laboratory (IBML) at LANL. He has 30 years research experience in the field of ion beam analysis, ion beam modification, and ion irradiation damage of materials. He has co-authored more than 280 peer reviewed publications including three book chapters and two US patents. He is a co-editor for the Handbook of Modern Ion Beam Materials Analysis (MRS Publisher 2009) and a co-author of a textbook on Ion Beam Analysis: Fundamentals and Applications (CRC Press, 2015).
Kayla Yano (PNNL)
Kayla H. Yano received a PhD from the Department of Materials Engineering at Purdue University. Her research has utilized in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) mechanical testing to examine deformation mechanisms and microstructural evolution of irradiated materials for structural applications. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, kayaking, and teaching her dogs new tricks.
Matthew (Matt) Chancey (LANL)
Matt Chancey is a Sorcerer working in the Ion Beam Materials Laboratory (IBML) under Yongqiang Wang. He is the main operator and maintainer of the 3 MV Tandem accelerator. He is experienced in the fields of ion beam damage studies, materials modification, and analysis. For FUTURE, Matt is part of the team developing and testing the in-situ positron annihilation spectroscopy(iPAS) capability. He is also involved with the varied irradiation and corrosion experiment(ICE)s and most other FUTURE related irradiations performed in the IBML. In his free time, he is an avid fly fisherman and tier, he enjoys skiing, and he generally loves most things outdoors—since he spends most of his working hours under-ground.
Ben Derby (LANL)
Ben Derby is a graduate of The University of Michigan. While there, he studied bicontinuous interfaces in immiscible thin film alloys for enhanced strength and radiation tolerance through the use of physical vapor deposition (PVD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), scanning/transmission electron microscopy (S/TEM), focused ion beam (FIB) techniques, and ion implantation. Under thrust-1 of FUTURE, he is contributing to the synthesis of model system thin films and in situ characterization of defects in irradiated and corroded structural alloys. In his spare time, he enjoys flying airplanes, woodworking, motorcycling, and spending time with his best friends, Sydney and Gus.
Hyosim Kim (LANL)
Dr. Hyosim Kim is a graduate of the Texas A&M University’s nuclear engineering department. She has been studying radiation damage in various materials especially nuclear materials such as ODS alloys by using ion accelerator, nanoindenter and electron microscopies such as scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), atom probe tomography (APT), and focused ion beam (FIB). She is experienced in operating and maintaining tandem ion accelerator for radiation damage studies and ion beam analysis; in using electron microscopies for damage and defects characterization; and in operating FIB to fabricate TEM lamellas, APT needles and micro pillars. For the FUTURE project, she is developing an in-situ positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) system on 3 MV NEC tandem accelerator and is also assisting with irradiation and corrosion experiments in liquids. She enjoys painting and playing guitar in her spare time.
Elizabeth Peterson (LANL)
Elizabeth Peterson, a graduate from the University of California, Berkeley, uses ab initio electronic structure methods for simulations of functional materials. Her research focuses on modeling the effects of point defects and interfaces on the structural, electronic and magnetic properties of materials, ranging from quantum materials to materials for applied energy applications. For FUTURE she is conducting research on how point defects affect the structural and electronic properties of oxide-oxide interfaces. In her free time she enjoys long distance trail running in the mountains of Northern New Mexico.
Elena Romanovskaia
Dr. Elena Romanovskaia is a postdoctoral researcher in materials science and engineering at the University of Virginia, working on Thrust 3 of the FUTURE project. She is a graduate of Belarusian State Technological University (BSTU), Minsk, Belarus. She defended her PhD thesis in Physical Chemistry at State Scientific Institution “Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of National Academy of Sciences of Belarus” (IGIC NAS of Belarus). For the FUTURE project, Elena is utilizing advanced electrochemical methods to investigate the corrosion mechanism and survivability of passivated and irradiated nuclear reactor alloys in extreme environments. She is investigating the effect of room temperature ionic liquids and the molten salts on the thermally formed oxide layer by using electrochemical techniques and surface characterization (XRS, Raman, XRD). She loves traveling, singing, learning languages watching and doing sport.
