DOE Honors Lawrence Award Winners

Seven scientists, including six who do physics-related work, garnered the US Department of Energy’s E. O. Lawrence Award in categories ranging from materials to nuclear technology, at a ceremony last month in Washington, DC. The prize is given for contributions in the field of atomic energy. Each of the winners received a gold medal and $25 000.

In the materials research category, Jeffrey Brinker was recognized for his “innovations in sol-gel chemistry to create nanostructured materials that have applications to energy, manufacturing, defense, and medicine.” He is a senior scientist at Sandia National Laboratories and a professor in the departments of chemistry and chemical and nuclear engineering at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He also codirects the university’s center for microengineered materials.

The award in the national security category went to Bruce Goodwin, associate director for defense and nuclear technologies at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). DOE acknowledged that he has provided “the crucial insight to design and implement fundamental experiments on the properties of plutonium that enabled the resolution of anomalous results from underground nuclear tests.” The citation added that the “fundamental resolution of important discrepancies reduces the reliance on empirical factors and is essential for confidence in our ability to address the issues of aging nuclear weapons and their refurbishment without further nuclear testing.”

Keith Hodgson was honored in the chemistry category for his “development and application of synchrotron radiation to investigate biological structure and function.” The citation added that his “innovative methods of rapidly obtaining the complete x-ray structures of macromolecular crystals and of determining the structures of the metal centers in macromolecules at atomic-level resolution in solution have contributed substantially to the burgeoning structural biology revolution.” He is the Howard H. and Jessie T. Watkins University Professor of Chemistry and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory at Stanford University and is the director of the SSRL at SLAC.

Saul Perlmutter, senior scientist in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s physics division, received the award in the physics category. DOE cited his “leading contributions to an unexpected discovery of extraordinary importance: the determination, through careful study of distant supernovae, that the expansion of the universe is speeding up rather than slowing down” (see Physics Today, June 1998, page 17 ).

In the environmental science and technology category, the award went to Benjamin Santer, a physicist at the program for climate model diagnosis and intercomparison at LLNL. He was recognized for his “seminal and continuing contributions to our understanding of the effects of human activities and natural phenomena on the Earth’s climate system.”

Paul Turinsky, who heads North Carolina State University’s department of nuclear engineering and is the technical director of the university’s electric power research center, received the award in the nuclear technology category. He was cited for his “numerous original contributions to nuclear engineering research, in particular for his breakthrough development of stochastic algorithms, methodologies, and codes for in-core fuel cycle management in light-water reactors that have significantly improved both the safety and economics of nuclear power.” DOE also recognized his leadership at the center “where, in a challenging industry, he has achieved national and international collaboration between nuclear power plant reactor designers and operators.”