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 and collaborators. 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.
The 2024 winners are:
Exemplary Innovation, Persistence, and Relevance in HED to the Stockpile Application of Complex Hydrodynamic Experiments
Matthew Arend, Ted Baumann, Donavon Casaray, Thomas Dittrich, Warren Garbett, Gail Glendinning, Peter Graham, Nicholas Hash, Lauren Hobbs, Dan Kalantar, Shahab Khan, David Martinez, Stuart McAlpin, Elvin Monzon, Danilo Paras, Patrick Poole, Shon Prisbrey, John Sain, Chris Santos, Soojin Stadermann, Richard Vargas, Willow Wan, Tod Woods and Chris Young
This Integrated Experimental Team (IET) has been carrying out high-energy-density (HED) experiments, culminating in several years of experiments on the National Ignition Facility (NIF). Their work has addressed key issues regarding the complex hydrodynamics involved in the performance of nuclear weapons.
Exemplary Teamwork to Achieve the First Successful (n, 2n) Cross Section Measurement Under HED Conditions with a Radionuclide-Doped Capsule Target at NIF
Tom Braun, John Despotopulos, Kenneth Gregorich, Justin Jeet, William Kerlin, Kelly Kmak, Samantha Labb, Elvin Monzon, Rhyan Reynolds, Nicholas Ruof, Brian Sammis, Dawn Shaughnessy, Keenan Thomas, Todd Wooddy and Charles Yeamans
The team successfully doped HDC NIF capsules with thulium-169, yttrium-89, and europium-152 for the first (n, 2n) measurement at NIF in July 2023. This shot demonstrated the ability to extract a cross-section from a NIF shot, as (n, 2n) products were measured and gave an accurate cross-section in preliminary calculations. This also demonstrated the first layered DT HDC implosion with a doped capsule.
LLNL Leads a Groundbreaking Set of Beta-Decay Measurements that Pin Down the Properties of the Weak Nuclear Force
Barbara Wang Alan, Mary Burkey, Aaron Gallant, Elizabeth Heckmaier, Brenden Longfellow, Kay Kolos McCubbin, Grigor Sargsyan and Nicholas Scielzo
A team of nuclear scientists led by LLNL precisely measured the beta-decay properties of the “mirror” nuclei lithium-8 and boron-8 to better understand the weak nuclear force. The LLNL team made these groundbreaking achievements possible by pioneering new experimental and theoretical methods to study nuclear beta decay.
Low-Yield Nuclear Monitoring Physics Experiment One A Design and Execution
Ana Aguiar Moya, Thomas Alexander, Ethan Alger, Mohammad Allouche, Adan Alvarez, Tarabay Antoun, Graham Auld, Amrit Bal, Hector Banuelos, Marcus Barela, Tyler Barnhart, Tara Bartlett, Giorgia Bettin, Jordan Bishop, Arturo Bockman, Miles Bodmer, Kyren Bogolub, Jesse Bonner, Rose Borden, Hakim Boukhalfa, Daniel Bowman, Chris Bradley, Carl Britt, Benjamin Broman, Scott Broome, Brian Brown, Jeff Burghardt, Ian Cameron, Adrian Campbell, April Carman, Daniel Chester, Alfred Chochrane, Charles Choens, Kirsten Chojnicki, Al Churby, Justin Cole, Thomas Coleman, Alexander Couture, Glenn Crosby, Alvaro Cruz-Cabrera, Walter Dekin, Beirl DeVisser, Matthew Dietel, Christine Downs, Nicholas Downs, Damien D’Saint Angelo, Beth Dzenitis, Eric Eckert, Daniel Eldridge, James Ely, Stephanie Eras, Garrett Euler, Souheil Ezzedine, Jose Falliner, Jim Fast, Kristine Featherston, Joshua Feldman, Sean Ford, Adam Foris, Michael Foxe, Clayton Freimuth, Brad Fritz, Graham Galvin, Sergio Gamboa, Lisa Garner, Thomas Gascoigne, Jason Gastelum, Scott Gauvain, Jessie Gaylord, David Gessey, John Gibson, Brian Glasgow, Andrew Glomski, Rengin Gok, Matt Goodwin, Akshay Gowardhan, David Green, Scott Grover, Derek Haas, Allyson Hall, Rodger Hall, Yue Hao, Daniel Hardy, Dylan Hauk, Heather Hibbetts, Austin Holland, Will Honjas, Kaleb Howard, Clayton Hudson, Matthew Ingraham, Johnny Jaramillo Jr., Ayrton Jenkins, Christine Johnson, Kyle Jones, Bill Junor, Martin Keillor, Graham Kent, Michael Keogh, Erica Kerans, William Kibikas, Keehoon Kim, Hunter Knox, James Knox, Christopher Kwiatkowski, Ken Laintz, Joey Lapka, Jennifer Larotonda, John Layne, Pierre-Yves Le Bas, Kieran Leadbeater, Nick Ledoux, Donnette Lewis, Shengtai Li, Dorothy Linneman, Paul Lipkowitz, Justin Lowrey, Gordon MacLeod, Jose Madrid Gutierrez, Michael Malone, Eric Matzel, Erin McCann, Ryan McCombe, Collin Meierbachtol, Rob Mellors, Brian Memmott, Wade Mendenhall, Jennifer Mendez, Nathan Michael, Harry Miley, Andrew Miller, Hayden Miller, Xavier Miller, Francisco Miranda, Manuel Montano, Michael Moore, William Munley, Edgar Murillo, Dea Musa, Stephen Myers, Taylor Myers, Annabelle Navarro, Stuart Nippress, Shawn Otto, Brian Paeth, Michael Pasyanos, Yagnesh Pathak, Steve Pemberton, Rose Perea, John Perkins, Jacob Peterson, Arben Pitarka, Gabe Plank, Agatha Podrasky, David Podrasky, Joseph Pope, Mike Poskey, Amanda Price, Andrew Puyleart, Moira Pyle, Bobby Quintana, Thom Rahn, Carlos Rendon, Justin Reppart, Hernan Rico, Barry Roberts, Nathan Roberts, Richard Robey, Rebecca Rodd, Aaron Rogall, Alexander Romanczuk, Melissa Roth, George Salyer, Bill Savran, Walter Schalk, Brian Schrom, Cari Seifert, Daniel Seitz, Xuan-Min Shao, Manwinder Singh, Dana Sirota, Johnathan Slack, Dave Slater, Devon Smith, Ken Smith, Brady Spears, Dale Sprinkle, Phil Stauffer, Richard Stead, Mary Stephens, Chris Strickland, Jiann-Cherng Su, Yunwei Sun, Jerry Sweeney, Ellen Syracuse, Alex Tafoya, Joshua Tafoya, M’balia Tagoe, Chad Taguba, Liane Tarnecki, Rees Tatge, Stephanie Teich-McGoldrick, Ben Terry, Ryan Thompson, Margaret Townsend, Greg Tubbs, Reagan Turley, Aaron Van Morris, Carol Velsko, Sergio Vergara, Juan-Antonio Vigil, Art Villalobos, Javier Villanueva, Efrem Vitali, Oleg Vorobiev, Darrin Wallace, Tim Walrath, William Walter, Doug Ware, Claire Watt, Erik Webb, Jeremy Webster, Sonia Wharton, Helen White, Robert White, Aliya Whitehill, David Wiersema, Marc Williams, Jennifer Wilson, Lynn Wood, Andrew Wright, Cliff Wright, Xianjin Yang, Ray Yost and Cleat Zeiler
A large, multidisciplinary LLNL team worked with colleagues at three other DOE labs and the Nevada National Security Site to design and perform a high-explosive test involving the detonation of 16.3 tons of chemical explosives at the NNSS. The goal of this collaboration was to validate physics-based models and data-based algorithms for predicting and detecting signatures from low-yield, evasively conducted underground nuclear explosions.
Unprecedented Plutonium Data from NIF Experiments
Alison Kuelz Ackerman, Maryum Ahmed, Lila Ahrendes, Suzanne Ali, Kazem Alidoost, Matthew Arend, Tom Arsenlis, Nicholas Aybar, Maria Barrios, Nathan Barton, Marina Bastea, Ted Baumann, Richard Beale, Jonathan Belof, Lorin Benedict, Joel Bernier, Diane Bird, Kerri Blobaum, Stanimir Bonev, Dave Braun, Richard Briggs, Staci Brown, Tod Caldwell, Samantha Calkins, Rob Cavallo, Peter Celliers, Amy Coleman, Gilbert Collins, Angela Cook, Federica Coppari, Douglas Dalton, Jean-Michel Di Nicola, Pascale Di Nicola, Zach Dunn, Beth Dzenitis, Jon Eggert, David Erskine, Amalia Fernandez Panella, Sullivan Figurskey, Emma Floyd, Dayne Fratanduono, Sally Gonzales, Martin Gorman, Ed Gumbrell, Sebastien Hamel, James Hawreliak, Brian Heidl, Roger Henderson, Rick Heredia, Damien Hicks, Matthew Hill, Matthias Hohenberger, Joe Holder, Kiel Holliday, Allen House, Channing Huntington, Nobuhiko Izumi, Adam Jaycox, Jason Jeffries, Amy Jenei, Jean Jensen, Jamison Jew, Dan Kalantar, Ken Kasper, Shahab Khan, Joe Kilkenny, Yong-Jae Kim, Jonathan King, Leo Kirsch, Tom Kohut, Lynn Kot, Richard Kraus, Jeremy Kroll, Andy Krygier, Chockalingam Kumar, Chuck Kumar, Mark Lament, Alexander Landa, Nino Landen, Nam Le, Jim Leek, Korbie Le Galloudec, Anthony Lewis, Tom Lockard, Zoe Long, Dawn Lord, Hector Lorenzana, Thomas Marcotte, Michelle Marshall, Karlene Maskaly, Nathan Masters, Todd Matz, Scott McBeath, James McNaney, Joe Menapace, Gino Mercado, Marius Millot, Elvin Monzon, Anna Murphy, Dan Nakahara, Abbas Nikroo, Earl O’Bannon, Daniel Orlikowski, Hye-Sook Park, Reed Patterson, Aaron Peer, Danae Polsin, Philip Powell, Carrie Prisbrey, Shon Prisbrey, Rudy Ramirez, Sean Regan, Bruce Remington, Gaia Righi, Michael Rubery, Robert Rudd, Ryan Rygg, John Sain, Chris Santos, Luke Savage, William Schill, Richard Seugling, Montu Sharma, Swanee Shin, Cal Smith, Raymond Smith, Per Söderlind, Saransh Soderlind, Michael Stadermann, Camelia Stan, Jeff Stanford, Phil Sterne, Gary Stone, Damian Swift, David Swift, Nathaniel Thompson, Scott Tumey, Bruno Van Wonterghem, Travis Volz, Roger Von Rotz, Mark Wall, Jonathan Ward, Christopher Wehrenberg, Jessee Welch, Heather Whitley, Henry Wong, Christine Wu and Tom Zobrist
The high-energy-density Materials Integrated Experimental Team has executed more than 30 plutonium experiments at the NIF since the first such experiment in January 2015. Recent experiments in 2024 have, for the first time, provided experimental evidence of a significant phenomenon previously only predicted by theory. This complex measurement is a tour de force of experimental science, requiring the development of unique experimental targets, laser drive pulses and diagnostics coupled with the highly sophisticated modeling and simulation tools developed in the stockpile stewardship program. This data will enable improved models of plutonium response for use in the assessment of the nation’s nuclear deterrent.