The Director's S&T Awards Program was first implemented in 2000 to acknowledge, celebrate and reward recent significant scientific and technical accomplishments by Laboratory staff. Accomplishments honored by this award are those that have made a significant impact on the Laboratory's mission and have been widely acknowledged both within the Laboratory and externally by sponsors and stakeholders as a significant advancement.
This year’s winners are:
A 15-Year Effort to Validate Adaptive Optics Predictive Wavefront Control
Mark Ammons, Mike Kim, Lisa Poyneer
The team identified adaptive optics (AO) system latency as a single most influential factor on exoplanet imaging science performance, setting the stage for the exceptional impact that Fourier-based Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) predictive control upgrades could have in benefiting exoplanet imaging science. This exceptional technical achievement — demonstrating better than tenfold gain in system latency relative to conventional AO systems — has illustrated the applicability and benefit of LQG control to improve performance of both current and future AO systems.
Next-Generation Simulation Technologies for the Exascale Era
Robert Anderson, Teresa Bailey, Brody Bassett, Kristi Belcher, Aaron Black, Ryan Bleile, Patrick Brantley, Thomas Brunner, Lee Busby, William Cabot, Jean Sylvain Camier, Alejandro Campos, Eric Chin, Joseph Ciurej, Andrew Cook, Stephanie Dempsey, Veselin Dobrev, Noah Elliott, Jeffrey Grandy, John Grondalski, Cyrus Harrison, Terry Haut, Daryl Hawkins, Richard Hornung, Louis Howell, Tzanio Kolev, Adam Kunen, Matthew Larsen, Matthew LeGendre, Wei Liu, Scott Mckinley, Philip Mocz, Walter Nissen, Matt O’Brien, Britton Olson, Maxwell Osawe, Richard Pember, Robert Rieben, Peter Scheibel, Aaron Skinner, Michael Stees, David Stevens, Thomas Stitt, Lee Taylor, Vladimir Tomov, Arturo Vargas, Richard Vega, Kenneth Weiss, Dan White, Steven Wopschall, Max Yang, Ben Yee, Misha Zakharchanka
Over the past decade, this team has transformed the way LLNL writes simulation codes. They have developed technology and software approaches that insulate us from changes in future architectures and reduce the long-term cost of our software base. This award recognizes several key foundational technologies that have helped propel LLNL’s expertise in modeling and simulation into the exascale era. RAJA, MFEM, and MARBL have worked together as a basis for a suite of next-gen simulation capabilities to advance research in computer science, computational mathematics and high-order physics.
Achieving Ignition at the National Ignition Facility
Matthew Aggleton, Suzanne Ali, Anthony Allen, Peter Amendt, Chantel Aracne Ruddle, Jay Ayers, Shannon Ayers, Benjamin Bachmann, Dave Bailey, Kevin Baker, David Barker, Salmaan Baxamusa, Perry Bell, Mikhail Belyaev, Robin Benedetti, Dick Berger, Riccardo Betti, Suhas Bhandarkar, Juergen Biener, Kristie Bigelow, Richard Bionta, Noah Birge, Thomas Boehly, Essex Bond, Dave Bradley, Tom Braun, Richard Briggs, Travis Briggs, Matt Bruhn, Debbie Callahan, Nuno Candeias Lemos, Arthur Carpenter, Jorge Carrera, Daniel Casey, Peter Celliers, Britton Chang, Tom Chapman, Isaac Chavez, Hui Chen, Chris Choate, Alison Christopherson, Dan Clark, Gilbert Collins, Jay Crippen, Christopher Danly, Philip Datte, Matthew Dayton, Matthew Devincenzi, Eduard Dewald, Jean Michel Di Nicola, Thomas Dittrich, Laurent Divol, Alex Do, Tilo Doeppner, Maylis Dozieres Ayber, Mora Durocher, Anthony Dymoke Bradshaw, Mark Eckart, John Edwards, Bob Ehrlich, Michael Erickson, William Farmer, Michael Farrell, Valerie Fatherley, Tobias Fehrenbach, S.M. Finnegan, David Fittinghoff, Joseph Florio, Matthew Freeman, Johan Frenje, Dustin Froula, Jim Gaffney, Hermann Geppert Kleinrath, Verena Geppert Kleinrath, Vladimir Glebov, Steven Glenn, Brad Golick, Valeri Goncharov, Gary Grim, Steve Haan, Kelly Hahn, Brian Haines, Gareth Hall, Bruce Hammel, Abe Handler, Jonathan Hares, Dana Hargrove, Judy Harte, Ed Hartouni, Nicholas Hash, Robert Hatarik, Martin Havre, Sean Hayes, John Heebner, Jose Hernandez, Mark Herrmann, Hans Herrmann, Damien Hicks, Drew Higginson, Terance Hilsabeck, Denise Hinkel, Darwin Ho, Nelson Hoffman, Matthias Hohenberger, Joe Holder, Laura Hopkins, Warren Hsing, Haibo Huang, Kelli Humbird, Omar Hurricane, Nobuhiko Izumi, Charlie Jarrott, Justin Jeet, Jean Jensen, Maria Gatu Johnson, Ogtie Jones, Justin Jorgenson, Dan Kalantar, Bob Kauffman, Gary Kerbel, Shaun Kerr, Shahab Khan, Joe Kilkenny, Yongho Kim, Robert Kirkwood, John Kline, James Knauer, Tom Kohut, Casey Kong, Joe Koning, Bernard Kozioziemski, Annie Kritcher, Jeremy Kroll, Michael Kruse, Bogdan Kustowski, George Kyrala, Otto Landen, Allen Langdon, Steve Langer, Doug Larson, Barbara Lasinski, Hai Le, Bruno Le Galloudec, Ramon Leeper, Sebastien LePape, Duane Liedahl, John Lindl, Tammy Ma, Mike MacDonald, Brian MacGowan, Andrew Mackinnon, Stephen MacLaren, Andrew MacPhee, Marty Marinak, Christine Mariscal, Derek Mariscal, Edward Marley, David Martinez, Laurent Masse, Michael Mauldin, Kevin Meaney, Nathan Meezan, Ryan Merrithew, Pierre Michel, Marius Millot, Jose Milovich, John Moody, Alastair Moore, David Munro, Sabrina Nagel, Katya Newman, Abbas Nikroo, Ryan Nora, Richard Olson, Arthur Pak, Nathan Palmer, Mehul Patel, Praveshkumar Patel, Lawrence Pelz, Luc Peterson, Richard Petrasso, Louisa Pickworth, Yuan Ping, Bradley Pollock, Joseph Ralph, Mark Ratledge, Sean Regan, Hans Rinderknecht, Harry Robey, Mordy Rosen, Steven Ross, Michael Rubery, Ryan Rygg, Jay Salmonson, Craig Sangster, Jim Sater, Dave Schlossberg, Marilyn Schneider, Chris Schroeder, Howard Scott, Scott Sepke, Kevin Sequoia, Mark Sherlock, Swanee Shin, Nick Shingleton, Hong Sio, Vladmir Smalyuk, Ricky Sommers, Brian Spears, Paul Springer, Michael Stadermann, Stanislav Stoupin, David Strozzi, Tayyab Suratwala, Larry Suter, George Swadling, Max Tabak, Lee Taylor, Avi Thomas, C. Thomas, Keenan Thomas, Nathaniel Thompson, Riccardo Tommasini, Richard Town, Clement Trosseille, Ellie Tubman, David Turnbull, Petr Volegov, Bruno Van Wonterghem, Chritopher Walsh, Cory Waltz, Chris Weber, Klaus Widman, C. Wild, Carl Wilde, Ed Williams, Doug Wilson, Scott Winters, Todd Wooddy, Tod Woods, Brandon Woodworth, Masashi Yamaguchi, Charles Yeamans, Chris Young, George Zimmerman, Alex Zylstra
This groundbreaking achievement was the result of a large team working in concert that included the target physics team that developed the design, set target and laser requirements, developed the experimental probing techniques, fielded the experiments, and interpreted the data, the target diagnostics team that developed the diagnostics, and analyzed the data, the target fabrication team that built and metrologized the ICF targets, and the NIF laser team that increased the NIF laser energy. This remarkable accomplishment provides access to regimes of high-energy-density physics critical for understanding the performance, survivability, and modernization of the nation’s nuclear stockpile. The x-ray and neutron yield allows the study of the survivability of weapon systems to effects and is immediately valuable to ongoing nuclear assessment and modernization efforts.