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SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES LDRD Expanding Professiona

ContentsOverview 6

Early-Career 8

Mid-Career 22

Late-Career 36

Expanding Professional Horizons

For urther inormation, contact:

Henry R. Westrich

LDRD Program Manager

[email protected]

505-844-9092

LDRD Expanding ProfessionaSANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES


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exemplars pointing the way to successul

research endeavors under the LDRD rubric.

Perhaps most importantly, LDRD is a

mechanism that has created a vast number

o cross-cultural partnerships across the

laboratory. Cross-center, cross-division,

or even cross-institution, scientists and

engineers o greatly diering skil l-sets

and backgrounds have been able to orge

partnerships in pursuit o a common

goal to discover new principles or

applications thereo, create new problem-

solving approaches or technologies, or

prove concepts or immature technologies

by resolving unknowns. Because science has

become so multidisciplinary, with common

underpinnings to problems that were once

viewed as germane only to speciic and

bounded disciplines, it stands to reason that

challenges at the leading edge o science

require cooperative assemblages o scientists

and engineers. For example, to seriously

approach solutions to optimization o certain

renewable energy sources within the context

o global climate change requires experts

in chemical thermodynamics, cell and

molecular biology, electrical and mechanical

engineering, microabrication, computationalmodeling, climatology, and perhaps other

areas as well. It is unlikely that this repository

o knowledge and understanding in depth

lies within the grasp o a single individual.

But at a national laboratory with the breadth

and depth o the research sta at Sandia, a

partnership o individuals in these ields is

not only possible, but has been demonstrated

in multiple instances during LDRD projects.

And in the context o Sandias multiple

and demanding mission exigencies, a sta

member who can expand his or her expertise

into ields related or complementary to

his/her central area o expertise, becomes

that much more valuable in the context

o orging such collaborative teams, both

in direct programmatic work, and in the

partnerships oten required to pursue the

leading-edge research unded through

LDRD. his will oten involve some degree

or orm o mentoring by more-experienced

sta members. In addition, such expansion

o personal expertise is oten acilitated

by partnerships with researchers rom

academia, industry or other government labs,

a eature o the LDRD program that is crucial

to recognize and to nurture. Although great

ideas are sometimes the product o single

individuals, it is perhaps more oten the case

that the development o truly innovative

science and technology lows rom the

collaboration o researchers who are all

working at the leading-edge o a challenge,

oten rom dierent but complementary

directions.

here is also ample evidence that LDRD has

attracted high-quality sta to Sandia, whomight otherwise not have come. From the

young scientist oered a position at MI

who instead chose the early-career lexibility

oered by his colleagues and his own LDRD

research to the graduate student, unaware

o Sandias position in the national landscape

and apprised o exciting Sandia research

by a riend or colleague, LDRD is a critical

recruiting resource, because there is reedom

to explore at the oreront o S&, to tackle

diicult and real-lie problems, to work with

the best and brightest researchers, and to

have impact. Scholarly publications are oten

the immediate outcome o such research

eorts, and this low o scholarly inormation

in the peer-reviewed literature and at

national and international meetings provides

Sandia and its LDRD program with critical

exposure or its researchers and vetting o its

scientiic or technical contributions. It is also

an invaluable recruiting tool a window

into exciting LDRD research or the young

scientist deciding on a career path.

In parallel with the external transparency

that scholarly publication coners, and given

the track record o positive interdisciplinary

collaborations, LDRD Program management

has been working to encourage all Sandia sta

to orm strategic partnerships both within

and outside Sandia. Most importantly, the

program continues to move in a direction

whereby sta understand that LDRD

welcomes projects, which because o their

ingenuity and innovative disposition, incur

risk. o allay this risk-aversion disposition in

sta members is critical to nurturing great

ideas and potentially boundary-breachingand status-quo-transcending research. Risk is

opportunity! Tese creative leaps into a more-

secure national uture are, indeed, the reason

that Congress unded LDRD at DOE national

laboratories. And in the ace o the immense

current challenges to national security,

encouraging risk-taking in developing creative

research strategies to address those challenges

is a crucial aspect o Sandia LDRD.

Rick Stulen, VP Science, Technology andEngineering, and Chie Technology Ocer,Sandia National Laboratories

he impact o the Laboratory Directed

Research and Development (LDRD) program

on sta at Sandia is elt in numerous ways

and at all levels o career development,

rom the individual who comes to Sandia

as a ruman Fellow, unded or three-years

o innovative research, through the late-

career sta member who, along the way, has

mentored and guided earlier-career sta in

diverse ways.

his publication highlights a myriad o ways

in which the Sandia LDRD Program has

nurtured sta development or individuals

at dierent stages o their careers. hese

20 stories are merely an exemplary subset,

and there are clearly other success stories,untold. In addition to sta development,

what emerges rom these stories is also the

creative energy that underlies the problem-

solving brilliance and collaboration that is

central to Sandia LDRD as its researchers

seek technical solutions to national security

challenges. hese individual and collective

characteristics are certainly worth noting

and perhaps even worth emulating as

Overview


5/25


Risk as Opportunityor Collaboration

Still Amazedby the PossibilitiesMeredith Anderson

Orphaned by the decision o her Ph.D. thesis

advisor at Ca rnegie-Mellon University (CMU)

to accept a position in industry, Meredith

Anderson returned to Sandia where she

had previously spent a summer month to

complete her graduate studies under the

tutelage o Sandian Brian Swartzentruber and

a committee back at CMU. It was a better way

to do it, she reminisces, considering hersel

ortunate to have been unded as a part o a

DOE basic energy sciences grant.

Ater deending her dissertation in 2004,

Anderson stayed on as a postdoctoral (postdoc)

researcher, and her mi nd quickly began to orm

bridges. I the imaging techniques she had

studied as a graduate student had been useul

in that context, then why not microelectronics?

I might as well, she thought the attitudinal

disposition o the academician to seek unding

sources well-ingrained in her psyche. I thought

it was a longshot, she says o the LDRD idea

she decided to submit, but they said they

wanted high risk. Convinced o the technical

merit o her idea, Meredith ound hersel still

amazed by what had become possible in the

eld o materials imaging. For example, based

on the quantum mechanical phenomenon o

electron tunneling, the Nobel Prizewinning

invention o scanning tun neling microscopy

had allowed researchers to image suraces at

the atomic level with a resolution o 0.1 nm,an astounding capability or microscopists

satised with electron microscope resolutions

o perhaps 5 nm, prior to the discovery.

For Meredith Anderson, such capabilities

are motivating, keeping the work exciting

and u n. Hence, despite her skepticism,

her irst attempt at LDRD unding achieved

success to her great, but pleasant, surprise.

And as A nderson plunged into the research,

she discovered as many researchers

do a t wo-edged sword. One edge cut

cleanly and precisely, conirming the

exciting propositions tendered in

the prospectus, while the

other edge raised as

many question as it

answered, provoking

some conusion.

his didnt stop

Anderson, or

she had already

learned the value

o consultation

and collaboration.

urning to senior

scientist,

Ed Cole, still an

active researcher

in this area o

characterizing

microelectronics deects provoked by various

actors, Anderson ound him interested

not only in her LDRD project, but also in

eliciting her participation on some o his

own work.

Despite these positive outcomes in eliciting

senior collaboration, Anderson was still a

postdoc leading an LDRD project, and in

light o this situation, her management hired

her as a limited-term sta member. Centered

in the nanosciences and microsystems area,

Anderson believes that her irst LDRD

project beneitted rom its good timing,

in the sense that Sa ndias Microsystems

and Engineering Sciences Applications

(MESA) project was approaching completionduring this same period. As such, as its

microelectronics/optoelectronics acilities

became operational, Anderson was heavily

involved in contributing to the team eort

that brought the acilities ully on line. I

know I did a good job at my parts o the

work, she recalls, this assessment supported

by a suggestion rom Cole that she should

consider writing a second LDRD proposal.

A high-resolution micrograph o s

capable o distinguishing p-dope

regions. (lighter areas) rom n-do

regions (darker areas).

SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES


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Anderson had ound a mentor and a team o

collaborators rom several organizations, her

microcopy results showing a high potential or

her work to have signicant impact in imaging

details o microelectronics components or

a variety o Sandia mission applications. Te

rst LDRD project, a more undamental

and exploratory incursion into teasing out

what might be possible, a proo o concept,

set the stage or the second proposal, which

approached the imaging possibilities rom

the more applied angle, with which she had

become more amiliar in her interactions

with the various sta members who had

participated in the stand-up o MESA. It gave

me the exibility to be able to explore the

possibilities, Anderson comments about her

rst LDRD project. And at about the same time

period as the unding o her second LDRD

proposal, also came her hiring as a regular

sta member, a correlation that Anderson

perceives as connected i not causally related

at least in the sense that the quality o her

ideas and research and her willingness and

ability to orge collaborations were exemplary

o her current and potential uture va lue to her

organization and the Laboratories.

Anderson continues to make use o the

richness o expertise and cross-centercollaborations possible at Sandia. Based on

the exhibited potential o imaging techniques

such as low-energy electron microscopy

(LEEM), she has consulted with other teams

o Sandia scientists who might benet rom

its capabilities. Its really great to have these

meetings; its maybe a ew years down the

road that youll see the eect, she notes with

a sense o anticipation, expressing the belie

that Sandias richly va riegated environment

presents innumerable opportunities or

creative collaboration. She exhibits an

understated condence that the capabilities

that she is developing and validating with

LDRD support will oer an important asset

or microelectronics and optoelectronics

researchers and developers in years to come.

Finding a Mentor-Collaborator

Attuned to SerendipityBryan Kaehr

Describing this as an exciting time to be at

Sandia, and himsel as an individual attuned

to serendipity, ruman Postdoctoral Fellow

and Albuquerque native, Bryan Kaehr sees

himsel amid a burgeoning initiative at the

interace o biology and nanotechnology.

Bio-nano interdisciplinary research is,

quite obviously, not only in-progress at the

Laboratories, but it is also growing and

attracting the attention and energies o

creative young sta like Kaehr. Tese early-

career individuals are not only coming to seek

growth and career-development opportunities,

but they are also bringing with them unique

opportunities or this acet o Sandia LDRD-

unded research eorts.

Although invited to present a seminar on hi s

doctoral research that was, a lready, a bio-

nano initiative, Bryan was, at irst, somewhat

daunted by the ruman announcement,

which he perused on a bulletin-board

lyer at the University o exas (U),Austin. It appeared rom the lyer that the

requirements bar or the ellowship was

set rather high. But ater a one-on-one

meeting at which Je Brinker (page 38)

encouraged him to apply, Kaehr recognized

the opportunity to integrate his research

with that o Brinkers ingenious team and

ollowed through, irmly believing that his

unique protein lithography system could be

I thought it was a longshot. . but they said they wanted high

risk . . . It gave me exibility to be

able to explore the possibilities.

o both great i nterest and great potential

value to the Sandia research ongoing in

this arena. Echoing the sentiments o

other ruman applicants and awardees

like Anatole von Lillieneld (p. 17), Bryan

was looking or a laboratory oering the

reedom to pursue novelty, to investigate the

leading-edge, in this instance, the leading

edge o the leading edge, a multidisciplinary

scientiic ield in its inancy. he ruman,

and the associated LDRD -unded endeavors

in Brinkers group clearly presented such an

opportunity.

Building a better micro-box or cells in which

to live would be a completely pedestrian way

to describe this work, but both the approaches

and the questions posed extend ar beyond

such a mundane description. But both Kaehr

and Brinker, his Sandia project manager,

are approaching this nanomanipulation o

microenvironments rom slightly dierent

angles. Kaehr had published his technique or

laser-light-based manipulation

o proteins within a hydrogel

matrix so-called multiphoton

lithography one that allows

him to create a diversity o nano

and microenvironments that

are manipulable by physical

parameters such as pH (acidity)

and temperature. But these

environments are also biologically

signicant, because proteins are

bionanomachines o various types

(signalers, receivers, motors, and

enzymes, or example). Tus, incorporationo living cells into such a nano-abricated

proteinaceous environment makes this a

potentially interactive situation, in which the

cells can interact with and remodel this light-

abricated structure.

Coming rom his background as a

materials scientist, nano-manipulating

inorganic materials, Brinker, meanwhile

Creating dynamic cell enclosures by way o lit hography o protein hydrogels enables the trapping o single bacterial cell

upper, let), ollowed by accumulation o colonies o cells (a, third panel, and c. let panel). Each cell is an elongated rod. (

2008, National Academy of Sciences, USA; originally published in Kaehr, B. and J. Shear, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

page 8850-8854, 2008).

This is anexciting tim

be at Sandi

a ripe place

biology.

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has nonetheless pursued a parallel path in

nano-constructing biologically compatible

environments, in his case, a composite

o inorganic silica and layered lipids (the

stu o biological membranes). Brinkers

team has demonstrated that living cells will

interact with and actively manipulate the

surrounding architecture.

Meanwhile, Kaehr has trapped and incubated

living cells i n micro-enclosures ormed by his

method. Hence, the marriage o these two

approaches may logically open up a myriad

o novel possibilities. At least two possible

research pathways loom, one more immediate,

the other more uturistic. More proximal are

investigations into cell signaling, undamental

questions abounding in signaling pathways that

appear to govern so-called quorum sensing

in bacteria by which a grouping o single-

celled organisms appear to sel-regulate as

though they were a multicellular organism.

Numerous signaling processes also await

clarication in higher organisms, or example,

the immune system, a liquid, d istributed

brain, representing a model system or study.

More uturistic are intentions to utilize cells as

modelers o nanomaterials; or example, one

could envision a bacterial cell, yeast cell, or

even a white blood cell becoming the creator

o circuitry on a silicon communications

chip. Once the stu o science iction, this

design potential is now not only conceivable,

but both Brinkers and Kaehrs systems

provide rational routes to such eventual

outcomes.

Te act that the two investigators are now

working together rather than separately one a distinguished Sandia sta member and

distinguished UNM proessor, the other an

early-career scientist is testament to the

possibilities inherent in the LDRD program and

the ruman ellowship. Kaehr speaks o Sandia

as a ripe place or biology. In his amazement

at the diversity and quality o science occurring

here, he predicts that the Laboratories will

develop more niches or people like me.

he ruman and the underpinning

philosophy o the LDRD program is clearly

a win-win or both Kaehr and Sandia. By

oering reedom to pursue cutting-edge

science in the company o astute, creative

colleagues, the Laboratories attracted a

young, creative researcher and potential

uture sta member, who brings with him an

innovative approach that both complements

and supplements ongoing work in this

remarkable new ield. Although Kaehr may

view his application or the ruman as

serendipitous, Brinkers active outreach to

creative young scientists, under the auspices

o the LDRD program is also exemplary o a

very wise investment by the DOE and Sandia

management in a LDRD program that makes

such collaborative cutting-edge science a

genuine possibility.

Creative OpportunityandStrong Leadership

Choosing the Creativity OptionJacques Hung Loui

We wish we had a program like LDRD to

oer you, said the voice on Jacques Louis

cell phone. Te phone call was rom a manager

at MIs Lincoln Laboratories, and the voice

had just oered him a highly coveted prize or

any graduating Ph.D. the opportunity to

conduct research as a sta member at one o

the premier physical science laboratories in

the world.

But, while standing in Bostons Logan Airport,about to board his return ight ater his

MI interview and a ew weeks prior to that

afrmational phone call rom MI, Jacques

had received what would turn out to be an even

more signicant call rom Sandia Vice-president

and Chie echnology Ofcer, Rick Stulen,

oering him through the LDRD Program

a President Harry S. ruman Fellowship. And it

was that call rom Stulen that took precedence,

Original design by Jacques Loui o a metal c

with periodic arrays o cells or controlling

electromagnetic radiation. Hung Loui 200

steered the course o Jacquess career. For, as

Jacques would explain to his MI solicitor,

his priority was creativity in order or him

to blossom as a scientist, he elt strongly that

creative space oered by the ruman ellowship,

the LDRD program, and the broad scope o

Sandia research eorts would best address his

aspirations. He had taken extra time in his

doctoral research so that he could pursue the

triad o experimental, numerical, and theoretical

approaches to electromagnetic radiation

scattering rom complex objects, and he elt that

the ruman Fellowship would enable him to

continue on all ronts, giving him reedom in

deciding an area o pursuit.

he MI caller sweetened the deal, oering

a signing bonus. But or Jacques, Sandia

was the best-kept secret in US science;

the breadth o globally and nationally

signiicant research unded under the

LDRD umbrella had already played its

magic on his thinking. He would pursue the

path that allowed him to create, innovate,

and collaborate, while charting a course

into the waters o national security in

the person o Sandias synthetic aperture

radar (SAR) technology. Most important

to Jacques were the bonds he rapidly

orged with his peers. He immediately

sensed that his Sandia mentor Billy Brock,

appreciated his work, and was antastically

encouraging, both scientiically and

personally. He exempliied, not only a

mentor, but a leader within a culture o

mutual respect, trust, and engineering

excellence at Sandia.

his culture o excellence and mutualrespect has convinced Jacques that he

has ound a home at Sandia. His ruman

LDRD involved a creative method or

controlling electromagnetic radiation

(light) by designing metal suraces with

periodic arrays o computationally designed

cells essentially elaborately conigured

apertures to allow active control o

signals or diverse applications sensors,

antennas,

and lenses,

to name

just a ew.

He credits

LDRD and

the support

by Brock and

manager Kurt

Sorensen or

making every

possible

eort in

his behal,

ensuring

that he

was never

isolated. As

his ruman

ellowship entered its inal year, Jacques

pitched a ollow-up idea to Sorensen

ater discussing it with several o his

peers and was rewarded as a member

o an LDRD-unded team, or which, as

a still-ruman Fellow, he could not serve

as principal investigator (PI). But this

allowed Jacques to pull

together a collaboration with

a team, whose PI, Bernd

Strassner, has become not

simply a ellow-scientist

whose ideas resonate with

Jacques, but also a riend

and an oicemate. With

distinct national security

implications, the research

in the arena o control o

electromagnetic radiation is,

in principle, related to Jacquesruman ellowship work.

Now a ull-ledged, cleared

sta member, Jacques will

be inishing his executive MBA at the

University o New Mexico, this year, and

is looking toward a uture in realms o

greater responsibility at Sandia. o me,

education is lie, says this budding young

. . . a cultof mutual

respect, tru

and engine

excellence

Sandia.


8/25


The reasonpeople come to

us for cyber is

that we have

more-innovati

research than

competitors, a

thats LDRD.

scientist, born near the Gobi desert.

Great leaders can see the goals o the

people around them, Jacques observes,

and even at this early phase o his own

career, it appears that he has the makings

o leadership, which the LDRD program is

nurturing.

Teamwork in AddressingNational Security Challenges

CompetitionDriving InnovationJonathan Margulies

Becoming an important, trusted young

sta member at a place hed never even

heard o: Tis outcome or Jonathan

Margulies reects the broad reach and great

accomplishments o Sandia and Sandia

LDRD, even i that reach is requently silent

or, rather, concealed within the experience

o individuals. In this instance, and by

luck, Jonathans roommate at Cornell had

worked, as a student, or a scant six weeks at

Sandia under Joselyn Gallegos; yet even that

short stint had been sufcient to convince

the roommate that it was an interesting,

productive, and high-quality environment.

aking the initiative as he approached the

completion o hi s Masters in Computer

Science, Jonathan investigated, and indeed

ound himsel recruited by Gallegos. During

his visit/interview process, he discovered

common interests and attitudes with manager

Bob Hutchinson, on both a personal and a

proessional level. With the opportunity to

work in either Caliornia or Albuquerque,

Jonathan chose the latter, despite other

personal preerences, and to a great extent

based upon his perception o the interpersonal

potential he saw through Hutchinson and other

members o his prospective team.

Ultimately, the payo was quite worthwhile,

Margulies nding himsel amid exciting

research opportunities within a vibrant,

exciting place to work. Te bigger

laboratory with a smaller prole had

suddenly opened up beore him, displaying

broad vistas o possibility, possibilities that

were intimately tied to LDRD unding to

examine undamental aspects o inormation

science, as well as to participate in the

development o new analytical tools. What

may sound like an overall simple challenge

protect critical inormation resources

can actually be astoundingly complex,

when one considers the intricacies o that

challenge. And aside rom the discovery

and implementation o mechanisms to

accomplish that protective initiative, there is

the accompanying, and perhaps even more

daunting challenge o how best to assess theresults o ones implementations.

Jonathans dual skills as computer scientist

and writer quickly made him an invaluable

asset, as his programmatic duties in code

development were supplemented by his

documentation o both his own work and that

o colleagues. In this role, he was avored with

a broad view o the research and development

activity in his group and organization. It also

permitted him to quickly develop a network

o trusted relationships.

Tese skills and developmental potential soon

came into play as Sandia Laboratory Fellow

Jim Gosler decided to increase t he

concentration o resources into thi s arena

o inormation protection, and he ca lled or

ideas worthy o LDRD unding. Trough Bob

Hutchinson, a competitive set o interviews

ensued to establish project leadership. Jonathan

was chosen to lead one o two teams that

would compete and co-evolve, and, ultimately,

he became the LDRDs principal investigator.

Initially a short, late-start project, the work

ourished, and within the circle o relationship

that he had developed, Margulies and several

colleagues submitted a second proposal that

LDRD unded or a two-year timerame.

Competition drives innovation, Margulies

reects, but there was also a real camaraderie

within that competitive atmosphere.

Within the context o this LDRD work, the

team and the group has engaged a number o

summer interns, and Jonathan is amazed at the

talent. Teres a great pipeline o young talent

available to Sandia, he reects. Remarkably,

in a group where over hal the technical sta

members are under the age o 30, the odds are

that this critical area o Sandia mission work

will continue to be stimulated to innovation by

resh young minds. However, in reecting on

the competitive process engendering the LDRD

success, Margulies emphasizes that each o

the relatively young teams in the competition

had an experienced senior sta member as an

advisor/mentor. In a sense, the situation revealsan orderly generational transition, whereby in

a eld such as inormation science which

expands daily, by leaps and bounds knowledge

turnover must be accompanied by an inusion o

new talent that both inorms and is inormed by

existing, experienced sta. With the discipline,

by denition, always poised at the leading edge,

LDRD becomes a natural vehicle or acilitating

not only steps orward at that leading edge, but

also the intergenerational collaborations that are

critical to creative risk-taking.

Jonathan believes that LDRD has inspired

our work or customers

to new heights. An

important guiding idea is

the understanding that

seemingly innocuous bits

o source code in di erent

parts o a system can

sometimes combine to

create dangerous cyber-

vulnerabilities. Margulies

sees Sandias work in

unearthing, assessing

and protecting against

such critical i normation

vulnerabilities

particularly in the orm

o a Sandia-developed

training tool as

ultimately transerrable to and hopeully

adopted by every ederally unded research

and development center (FFRDC).

he reason people come to us or cyber

is that we have more-innovative research

than our competitors, and thats LDRD.

Clearly that attitude has both irmly engaged

Jonathan Margulies talents and shown

him a path to urther developing them

and sharing them with a broader Federal

constituency.

Networking to

Expand CapabilitiesEncouraged to Try AgainChris San Marchi

With an MI education and research

experiences in metal oams and intermetallics,

Chris San Marchi was ju st a bit out o his

comort zone when he accepted a job at Sandia

that brought him responsibility or metal

A representation o the creation o a dangerous

vulnerability through combination o disparate,

seemingly innocuous eatures in various parts o

source code, or various parts o a system.


9/25


orging. Yet his experience with alloys and his

amiliarization with the mission needs o his

organization provoked his mind to consider

approaches that might both challenge his

scientic acumen and serve Sandias multiple

missions in gas transer systems, both military-

and civi lian-related.

So ater a ew years at the Laboratories, Chris

experience with aluminum alloys led him to

submit an LDRD proposal. And although the

creative idea invited a proposal, the proposal

itsel did not succeed in gaining unding.

However, as part o the possible eedback

mechanisms structured into the LDRDprocess, the selection committee encouraged

him that the idea was sound and worthy, and it

encouraged him to reapply.

I was pleasantly surprised and somewhat

overwhelmed, says Chris o that second

attempt, successul in securing three-year

project unding to experimentally investigate

and model the undamental properties o

nanostructured aluminum alloys. San Marchi

pressed orward in an environment where he

had not yet had either the longevity or the time

to become associated with a signicant raction

o his peers. But as the mother o invention,

necessity, in this instance, ueled collaboration.

People knew we had an LDRD program, he

relates, in recalling how the unding gave him

local visibility.

It gave me the opportunity to interact with

other sta on tough scientic problems,

San Marchi comments on a common theme

pervading LDRD unding recipients, namely

an encouragement to collaboration. In anatmosphere such as Sandia, the program

has particular value, particular strength.

For in taking on a research responsibility,

a sta member knows that gaps in his or

her expertise can be readily lled through

collaboration. As echoed by others (p. 25),

there are so many Ph.D.-level experts to be

ound at Sandia, that a principal investigator

(PI) with LDRD unding would be oolish to

not tap such a rich ont in seeking to ll those

expertise gaps. And science has become so

multidisciplinary and so complex with the

continual addition o scientic knowledge,

that to approach the type o vanguard

research that characterizes LDRD is quite

likely to entail knowledge rom related

disciplines, o which no one individual is likely

to have mastery.

So it was that San Marchi developed

relationships that not only assisted his own

LDRD interrogation o nanostructured metal

alloys, but also brought him into contact with

both microscopists and other metallurgists

at Sandia, who reciprocally sought his

expertise on their projects this cross-

ertilization both within and across disciplines

another common theme acilitating career

development and enrichment or LDRD PIs

and sta.

Nanostructured aluminum alloys show

some remarkable mechanical properties. For

example, they exhibit strength that is two or

more times greater than conventional solid-

solution strengthened aluminum alloys; and

their nanostructure remains intact at very

high temperatures, up to 80% o the melting

point o the alloy, an unusual characteristic

or nanostructured alloys. Tere are two

important spinos o these properties. Te

rst implication is obviously or structural

applications, that is the abrication o lighter

vehicles and aircrat with greater cruising

range, and moreover, that would be more-

energy efcient to power. But second,

preliminary studies suggest that these

alloys are resistant to a phenomenon knownas hydrogen-assisted racture, in which

hydrogen acilitates cracking as it does

in most structural steels. Since they appear

resistant to hydrogen-assisted racture at

pressures up to 20,000 pounds per square

inch (psi), nanostructured aluminum alloys

are potentially valuable as containment

materials or high-pressure storage o gaseous

hydrogen or utilization in hydrogen uel cells.

rue to the projects LDRD roots, the

issues that San Marchi and his co-workers

pursued were undamental: investigating

the underlying structural and metallurgical

underpinnings o the

properties o these

alloys; they pose

the hypothesis that

segregation o magnesium

to the grain boundaries o

nanostructured aluminum

plays an important role

in dening these unique

properties.

San Marchis work has

brought lots o industrial

olks to Sandia, which

San Marchi nds really

exciting and rewarding, and has brought

external unding to his work. And o course,

given that encouragement, Chris is grappling

with two new LDRD ideas that would

explore undamental materials issues in the

gas-transer system arena, but with broad

applicability to national energy security. Tis

time, however, the process has taken on a

slightly dierent shape, in that with co-workers

already allied and potential collaborators

identied, San Marchi has assembled a small

team in each case. I have some hope or this

next LDRD, he reveals, despite the act that

he also regrets having not ullled all o his

aspirations or the one just ended. But that

admission rames a key personal aspect o

LDRD PIs that also claries a contribution to

their development as sta members at Sandia.

When one has the wherewithal, the personal

honesty, to understand that all has not beenaccomplished, that scientic and technical

questions remain unresolved, and one is willing

to push harder against those boundaries o

scientic uncertainty, the reward can be great

not only or scientic knowledge itsel and

ones peers in the discipline, but or ones own

personal integrity and capabilities as a scientist

or engineer. Chris San Marchi appears to

exempliy such integrity.

It gave me theopportunity to

interact with

other staff on

tough scienti

problems.Transmission electron micrograph o a nanostructured aluminum-

magnesium alloy.

500 nm500 nm


10/25


Computational Potency toModel Engineering Solutions

An Inspiring Breadtho ScienceO. Anatole von Lilieneld-Toal

What does one do when aced with an

engineering dilemma underpinned by the

undamental science o material properties? In

the past, the only answer was to hypothesize

a direction or scientic experimentation

that might bring one closer to an engineeringsolution, then design an experiment to test

the hypothesis. Hypothesize, test, evaluate

outcome, repeat. And repeat and repeat and

repeat, unless one is extremely brilliant or

extremely ortunate.

But what i the engineering solution holds

a key to improving a crisis such as the one

acing our nation and the world in the area

o renewable energy and climate change?

Te question then becomes, is there a aster

way to do this, by predicting the best course

or experimentation? ruman postdoctoral

Fellow Anatole von Lillieneld believes that

better way involves computationally devising

accurate chemical structure-materials property

relationships th rough multiscale descriptions

involving Ab Initio Molecular Dynamics.

For someone o his disposition, Sandia

is a very attractive place to be, oering

the opportunity to collaborate with very

capable scientists to potentially devisea sotware tool allowing us to routinely

design valuable materials that actually get

used. For example, the Sandia solar-thermal

tower employs a molten salt to store t hermal

energy rom sunlight, later releasing it to

drive a mechanical engine that turns an

electrical generator, thus converting sunlight

to electricity. Te salt can be heated to 600

C, but at the top o the tower, temperatures

great opportunitiesfor collaboration . . .

great facilities and

the freedom to

use them.

above 1000 C can be reached; problematically

the salt decomposes, losing its chemical

structure above 600C. Additionally, currently

deployed salt ormulations remain liquid

and thus able to ow through the systems

pipes only above 100 C. Tis means that

to prevent the salt rom solidiying within

the systems pipes, it must be heated to the

boiling point o water at night. Tis consumes

energy and money, unnecessarily. What i

a salt could be ound that remained liquid

at room temperature, requiring minimal

heating to remain uid, and one that could

also sustain temperatures above 1000 C

without decomposing, thereby absorbing the

maximum amount o solar thermal energy

available at the top o the solar tower? Such

a material would greatly increase the energy

efciency o the solar-to-electricity energy

transormation, thereby decreasing the

overall cost o power production.

o an experimentalist, this is a thoroughly

daunting task because, based upon whatever

chemical characteristics are available in

the literature, one would have to make an

educated guess about which salts might

oer the desired properties, then set up a

separate series o experiments-with-controls

or each possibility. But with computational

modeling, von Lilieneld not only attempts

to predict desired properties directly rom

chemical structural, bonding and quantum

considerations, but also to numerically

anticipate the trends o these properties or

varying the materials chemical composition.

Bridging statistical mechanics and quantum

chemistry, this eld is barely two-decades

old and is, by denition, interdisciplinary,involving mathematics, computer science,

and chemical physics. Tere are but a handul

o research groups with the wherewithal and

knowhow necessary to ruitully pursue this

type o bottom-up computational design

o materials. With experience at the Swiss

Federal Institute o echnology, UCLA and

NYU, von Lillieneld is among a small group

o uniquely qualied designers.

With that background, von Lilieneld was

seeking a way to pursue his ideas in a ertile

landscape with the requisite computational

resources allowing him to ocus on

science,

without

the other

distractions that

an academic

positions would

impose He

communicated

with colleagues

at both Los

Alamos and

Sandia. Te

ability to

explore new

ideas and

approaches, in

the context o LDRD unding was decisive in

bringing him to Sandia, particularly against the

backdrop o the breadth o science at Sandia,

which he ound inspiring.

Te opportunity to collaborate with

experimentalists has played a major role

in his contentment about his position. A

signicant outcome o von Lilienelds work

is reected in the acceptance by UCLA o his

proposal to chair a three-month computer

materials and bio-design workshop in spring

2011. With Sandias great opportunities or

collaboration, and its great acilities and the

reedom to use them, perhaps Anatole will

continue his association with the laboratories

ater the completion o his ellowship, at

least on some level, and he is currently

conceptualizing thermal redox-catalysisthat could benet eorts to economically

produce molecular hydrogen rom water,

or to engineer a sunlight driven reaction

or approaching the issue o carbon dioxide

activation to carbon monoxide or liquid

uels synthesis. Tis collaborative modeling-

experimental approach may well set the stage

or a novel solution to this key national-

security challenge.

Quantum-mechanical probability distribution to predict the eect on the redox potential o a polymer due to

annihilation o an Hydrogen atom.


11/25


Skepticismwithout Risk-AvoidanceLearning to GrowKaren Waldrip

For someone who back-doored into Sandia,

Karen Waldrip quickly ound an oasis within

a desert rom a graduate program in

balmy Florida to high, dry Albuquerque and

that oasis o terriic technology talent that

she discovered working on materials science

at Sandia. Go learn to grow (crystals),

her thesis advisor recommended, and

Karen ended up learning, absorbing, and

contributing much more than that, nine-

years later, winning a 2008 LDRD Award or

Excellence or her novel method o growing

nitride crystals.

Waldrip ound hersel awed by the attitude

o that grouping o Sandia materials

scientists whom she irst encontered. I

you could buy a piece o equipment to do an

experiment, then we didnt

need to do that experiment,

she quips about those

scientists and engineers,

the attitude being that their

interest was in pushing the

envelope, treading i nto the

undiscovered territory. his

is exactly the attitudinal

disposition that incubates

LDRD idea and successul

LDRD project proposals, and

rom the beginning, Waldrip

ound this attitude exciting

and admirable.

When Karens research

hit equipment roadblocks,

she began to interact with

members o the Solid State

Lighting Grand Challenge

LDRD, presenting bits

and pieces o her idea or growing bulk

nitride crystals. All the mechanisms or

nitride growth necessitated extremes o

temperature and pressure within reactors,

making the process slow and expensive.

But Waldrip had a notion about something

dierent, and she drew a chuckle or two

rom more-experienced colleagues with

notions about electrochemically growing

nitrides the materials most widely used

in light-emitting diodes (LEDs) or solid

state lighting at lower temperatures and

pressures.

Everyone was skeptical, but they d idnt

say, dont do it, Waldrip distinctly recalls.

A ew months later, she grew the secondlargest nitride crystal in a test tube at

atmospheric pressure. Certainly, the crystal

was imperect, but it demonstrated proo-o-

principle.

As might be expected, there were job oers

rom private industry as well as rom Los

Alamos National Laborotory, but Waldrip

saw the latter as a bit too long-term

LDRD allowsyou to pursue new

ideas . . . see

whats possible.

and theoretically driven. It was Sandias

engineering and electrochemistry expertise

that turned her toward the Power Sources

echnology group and thereore retained

her as a Sandia asset. Above all, she saw the

opportunity to learn more electrochemistry

rom a diverse and highly skilled peer group.

She ound advice and management support

rom Te Science echnology and Engineering

(S&E) Strategic Management Unit. Tey

pointed Waldrip toward LDRD and the Seniors

Investment Area. Tis collection o senior

Sandia scientists liked her idea and provided

late-start seed unding in 20042005, then

extended it or a second year.

his initial u nding gave Karen the

opportunity to change the opinions o the

nay-sayers, allowing her to demonstrate

possibility. And it acclimated her to the

notion that LDRD unding was indeed aimed

at ideas and projects such as hers, which

were treading that leading edge, looking out

rom the terra irma o the what is to the

sometimes misty horizons o what might

be, encouraging the risky path.

LDRD allows you to pursue new ideas, to go

where it takes you; see whats possible. Nor

does Waldrip see any discontinuity between

Sandias past its weapons underpinning

and this uturistic view o evolutionary novelty.

So much spino technology comes rom the

weapons program, she notes, perceiving the

vast ingenuity that has been required to design,

maintain, and modiy weapons components.

Outside agencies have added their recognitiono Karens work to the LDRD award. Her

proposal to the National Energy echnology

Laboratory (NEL) was ranked number one

in the agencys entire portolio in 2007, and

it unded her work subsequent to the LDRD

projects ending. Funding has also come rom

the DOE Ofce o Energy Efciency and

Renewable Energy (EERE) in the area o power

electronics.

Karen is, however also incubating several

new ideas in pursuit o her research

goals, and she is, in tu rn, loating several

new LDRD proposals in pursuit o these

innovative notions. She notes that about

1% o total global energy expenditure is

currently invested in ammonia production

or soil ertilizers. In her mind, this

astounding igure demands a broader

examination o this chemistry, and she

sees Sandia as positioned to pursue this

challenge, which, in an era o energy

shortages, is clearly an important national

and global consideration.

In the meantime, a quite promising

partnership appears to be evolving between

GNOEM

Systems, a Bay

Area startup,

and Sandia

in the area o

crystal growth,

with GNOEMs

intentions, or

the present,

to supply the

industry with

substrate

waers, and the

partnership

making great

advances. And looking back at Karen

Waldrips initial back-door entry into the

Sandia research community, one marvels

at how much her mandate to learn to grow

crystals has ramiied i nto a lush garden o

new growth opportunities. From the initial

support and mentoring by experiencedSandians to the prescience o her irst

unding by the Seniors Council, to her

award-winning LDRD project, the return on

those investments or both Sandia and the

nation is quite evident. And the growth and

ramiication o her career at Sandia has been

illustrative o how LDRD i nvestments can

tender crucial support or ingenuity even

in the ace o skepticism.

Photoluminescent gallium nitride crystallites grown by the

electrochemical solution growth method.


12/25


EstablishingBio-Nano Credibility

Nanomotors rom NatureGeorge Bachand

One o the most exciting areas o research

endeavor or Sandia and its LDRD

investments is undoubtedly the intersection

o biotechnology and nanotechnology, and

George Bachand has been working at t hat

intersection or a good portion o his career.

Viruses are certainly one o Natures most-

ecient examples o nanoengineering, and

coming out o a background in plant virology,

Bachand, was, rom the beginnings o his

career, interested in the question o how

biological nanosystems could play a role in

engineering new nanotechnologies.

Proering the view that Sandia is a well-kept

secret, (p. 10), Bachand was ortunate to have

attended a seminar discussing some o Sandias

nanotechnology work. Ti s serendipitous event

piqued his curiosity, and ater an exchange o

inormation, Sandia oered him a sta position

in 2001. His expertise immediately became

invaluable on some LDRD projects involving

surace unctionalization o biological

molecules. During a stint as a research

associate at Cornell University, Bachand

had become interested in biological motors,

ascinating proteins that, powered by cellular

chemical energy (AP catalysis), can perorm

mechanical work while attached to other

biomolecules, thereby exerting a nanoscale

orce to create motion inside or outside cells.

It was quite a relie to not have to write a30-page proposal, Bachand says o the LDRD

submission process, one that allowed him to

learn the crat o how to write successully

(see also page p. 40) while working his way

into mission-relevant projects at Sandia, by

rst serving on the projects o others until

he elt prepared to move into the role o

principal investigator (PI) on an LDRD project.

Ultimately, his work on a team studying the

utilization o biomotors or the assembly o

unctional nanocomposites made the cover o

Advanced Materials in December 2008.

Bachand has been PI on a number o LDRD

projects aimed at the accrual o knowledge on

motor protein applications in nanotechnology,

and he has gradually i ntegrated his work

with collaborators outside Sandia, under the

umbrella o the Sandia-Los A lamos Center

or Integrated Nanotechnology (CIN), so

that they can ultimately be used in ully

integrated nanosystems in a multitude o

national security initiatives. Te best-studiedmotor protein, o late, is a motor known as

kinesin, which ports material inside cells,

moving along nanodimensional tracks called

microtubules. For example, when measured

rom the cells main body to the end o it

longest nerve ber, some nerve cells in our

bodies may reach lengths o two eet or more,

and to move materials rom one end o a cell to

another requires rapid motion by these ki nesin

Scanning electron photomicrograph o an ring-like composite

nanomaterial consisting o biological microtubules and semico

nanoparticles (quantum dots).

SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES


13/25


motors. Bachands studies entail a variety o

combinations o these biological components

with light-generating nanocomponents

such as quantum dots (QDs). By analogy, in

certain sh, these motor-track combinations

move bio-pigmented crystals around inside

cells, changing their local concentrations

within a sh s skin to eect color changes and

camouage.

Tere are clear national security applications

o these systems in areas such as active

camouaged clothing or the

military (where the clothing

would respond to changes in

surroundings by automatically

adapting its coloration), as well

as in ultraminiaturized sensor

technologies, in which the assembly

o miniature components on the

nanoscale would greatly benet

rom the use o biological motors.

Sandia showed a commitment

and interest in this area, Bachand

points out, and LDRD provided

a vehicle or him to gradually

develop projects based both on his existing

expertise and new expertise t hat he acquired

by stretching into novel areas related to those

he brought with him to Sandia. As a result,

DARPA engaged George in a multi-year project

that ultimately involved a partnership with the

Naval Research Laboratory, the University o

Florida, Albert Einstein College o Medicine,

and the Swiss Federal Institute o echnology.

We wouldnt have been positioned well i

LDRD hadnt given us a track record in thisarea. Echoed by others (pp. 27), this track

record theme is an important LDRD outcome.

Additionally, there was a great degree o

student involvement in Bachands research,

with students using the experience to catapult

them into their own post-baccalaureate

experiences. Bachand describes one such

student whose research experience set

her apart rom the crowd, in obtaining her

acceptance to the University o Caliornia

at Berkeley graduate school, a prestigious

molecular biology program. Another o

Bachands undergrads gained acceptance as

a medical student at Johns Hopkins School

o Medicine, again, a top-ight medical

program. raining students has always been

a passion o mine, Bachand admits, and he

praises the CIN model as a great mechanism

or both developing ideas in nanotechnology

and a vehicle or both researcher and student

development.

Recently, Bachand has expanded his work

with QDs into an LDRD-unded study o

nanotoxicity, that is, investigating whether

or not QDs and other commonly used

engineered nanomaterials such as carbon

nanotubes have signicant biotoxicity. Given

the growing spate o initiatives proposing to

use these components both experimentally

and therapeutically (drug delivery) in humans,

and which are already incorporated in certain

products such as sunscreen, such studies

are essential to assessments o human and

environmental impact.

With the expanded ocus o his research into

arenas that include health considerations or

both individuals and population clearly

national security issues Bachand is

expanding his research unding horizons

beyond LDRD and DOEs Ofce o Science.

Although he recognizes the National Institutes

o Health (NIH) as a tough sell, he is among

a growing cadre o LDRD-u nded researchers

who are entertaining NIH unding as a genuine

possibility or reality.

Clearly, sta members like George Bachand do

not perceive any unding stream as unattainable,

but rather perceive Sandia, through its LDRD

program and ollow-on unding, as continuing to

make inroads into both the undamental mysteries

o cellular unction and the pathways by which

biological nanomachines can be employed as

genuinely integrated nanotechnologies with those

We wouldnt

ave been

ositioned well

f LDRD hadnt

iven us a track

ecord in this

rea.

designed by human engineers to accomplish

uturistic outcomes that once were considered

science ction.

An EntrepreneurialTest-Flight Returns to SandiaAmong a Cadre o ExpertsMary Craword

Solid-state lighting (SSL) beyond the LEDs

in our nearly ubiquitous cell phones and mp3

players is the promise o lighting homes,

ofce buildings, city streets, and even Olympic

venues. But to do so requires a undamentally

deeper and more-comprehensive

understanding o the semiconductor materials

o which these devices are composed. And

beyond simply lighting, the potential

applications o these semiconductors in

other electronics and optoelectronics areas

are plentiul: non-interceptible, short-range

communications, biological and chemical

threat detection.

Recently asked to write a review o the eld,

Mary Craword, at mid-career, has become

a prominent gure in the optoelectronics

materials science community, and she is

enthusiastic about applauding the role o LDRD

support in the development o her career.

First and most directly tied to Sandias LDRD

mission or DOE, she is clear about LDRD as

one o the ew avenues or doing higher-risk

work, and based upon the uncertainty actor

and the potential benets rom optimized

SSL, the optoelectronics o semiconductormaterials is an excellent example o high-risk,

potentially high-payo research. In general, the

corporate arena will not or cannot engage in

this type o ri sk. But having spent two years

on entrepreneurial leave, Mary has a rst-hand

perspective on this corporate-risk topic.

Companies appreciate us doing the arther-

out work, which they cant or wont do because

it could adversely impact their reactors

or interrupt their product line, Craword

observes. And in the SSL arena, companies

such as Philips Lumileds have been engaged

rom the beginning, ollowing progress and

at times, partnering on some o Sandias

SSL R&D. Tis ideal partnership in which

or-prot lighting manuacturers remain

continually engaged with their national-

laboratory colleagues is made ar more ruitul,

as Craword suggests, by the act that the

LDRD program adheres to its mission mandate

rom DOE to pursue high-risk research at the

leading edge, a act oten ignored or overlooked

by LDRD critics, who sometimes incorrectly

analogize high-risk research as akin to playing

in sandboxes. Nothing could be arther rom

the truth in Ma ry Crawords opinion.

Moreover, beyond the high-risk science, the

LDRD legislation includes a mandate to

maintain the vitality o the laboratories , oneimplication being to develop and retain sta.

On this point, Craword is equally clear:

LDRD unding has allowed her to pursue

science that captivates her interest, and

stimulates her creativity. It has a lso ostered

the development o an entire spectrum o her

personal capabilities that have allowed her to

grow rom a postdoctoral research associate

in 1993 to a productive, respected member in

White light (center o photo) produced by the mi xing o

light rom multicolor LEDs (photo courtesy of Professor

E. F. Schubert).


14/25


her eld, who attracts invitations to author

articles and consult on new initiatives. For

LDRD is very much, in Crawords view, how

a new sta member learns to w rite proposals,

bring together a team, and present his or her

ideas to peers or review and scrutiny. Soon

ater her rst stint as principal investigator

on an LDRD project, she was

asked to become a thrust

leader or a portion o the

extensive and successul

MicroChemLab project, to

develop a compact, short-wave

vertical cavity surace emitting

laser (VCSEL). It was the rst

time I was directly exposed to

such a diversity o olks in other

elds, she recalls. It required

her to ormulate presentations

to upper management that

encouraged cross-disciplinary

collaboration, and spurred her

to take the risk o entrepreneurial leave, as

senior scientist and director o R&D or a small

startup. And in some sense, her LDRD research

experience both acilitated and permitted that

path. I had no concept o what it was like to

work in a corporate environment, she observes,

and the experience provided perspective on

the cost-savings and yield, production aspects

that companies especially small ones

must attend to.

Many companies, especially start-ups, cant

support advanced modeling capabilities,

Craword also emphasizes, commenting on

the astounding capabilities o a laboratory like

Sandia, where a great percentage o LDRD

projects include both experimental andmodeling/simulation initiatives in parallel.

Nor does Mary u nderplay Sandia

collaborations with academic partners. I

always wanted to collaborate with him, she

says o Rensselaer Polytechnic Institutes

(RPI) Proessor Fred Schubert, a pioneer in

optoelectronics. She credits the national

laboratoryacademic partnership, National

Institute or Nanoengineering (NINE) as

one o the avenues to that collaboration, its

educational emphasis important to her, as

she now inds hersel at a point in her career

where she derives great satisaction rom

mentoring young researchers. LDRD is a

great vehicle or early-career development

and a great way to get postdocs involved in

research.

Echoing the comments o others (pp. 23

and 27), Mary comments on the way LDRD-

unded projects lay the groundwork,

paving the way or u nding rom DOEs

Oice o Energy E iciency and Renewable

Energy (EERE). We write proposals with

credibility, she asserts, because the record

o scholarly publications and presentations

deriving rom LDRD projects establish that

expertise and agencies such as EERE and

DARPA want to see some proo o concept

beore they will und ollow-on work. And

beyond LEDs, Mary sees smart lighting, with

communication aspects such as lights that

permit two-way communication interactions

with emergency vehicles and even more-

remarkable applications o her work such

as probing and manipulating (or sleep and

health beneit) human circadian rhythms

as uture horizons to be investigated.

Im so spoiled, here, Mary relects,

commenting on the availability o expert-level

peers in other ields at Sandia; i I dont know

something, I go to a Ph.D.level expert at

Sandia. Companies dont typically have that

degree o sta diversity. hat commentary

ocuses a telephoto lens on the value o a

national laboratory like Sandia particularlyits cutting-edge LDRD Program research

or US competitiveness in the global

marketplace. As recently emphasized by the

president, the United States must regain that

global leadership, and it is that corporate-

national laboratory-academic partnership

that can lead the way. By helping to develop

the careers o researchers like Craword, the

LDRD program is helping to ensure that the

return to US global S& preeminence can

become reality.

Gaining Preeminencein Clean-Water Initiatives

Collaborations in Pursuit o a GlobalChallenge

Randall Cygan

Water water every where . . . but nary a drop

to drink. Tis misquote o ColeridgesRime

of the Ancient Marinerhas been, lately, more

prophetic than anyone would have imagined.

For on a living planet whose individual

organisms tend to run to compositions o

about 70% water, by weight, much o that water

has become or was already contaminated

by dissolved substances such as metal salts.

Tis is less o a problem or certain plants,

bacteria, and ungi, which possess varying

degrees o salt-tolerance, but or humans,

potable water, that is, suitable or consumption,

must be relatively ree o heavy metals and

certain organic contaminants, but also cannot

contain signicant amounts o what might be

considered relatively harmless dissolved salts

such as table salt, sodium chloride.

Most people recognize that we cannot live by

drinking seawater, the problem being osmotic

pressure. Te end result o this disparity is that

our tissues actually lose water to seawater, by

osmosis the net result, dehydration.

o become potable, seawater and the large

number o worldwide underground aquiers,which oten contain expansive water

supplies, must be desalinated reduced

in salt concentration. And with the ever

growing planetary disparity between supply

and demand o potable water, the issue o

desalination/purication o these water

sources is a growing concern. Hence, quite

understandably, Sandia LDRD has unded

a number o cutting-edge approaches to

. .how a newtaff member

earns to write

roposals, bring

ogether a team,

and present his or

er ideas . . .

desalination technologies, and, or many years,

Randall Cygan has been a leader in pursuit

o understanding the undamental science

underpinning the interaction o water and salts

with other materials rom which desalination

membranes are constructed (reverse osmosis

[RO] membranes are one example). What

distinguishes Cygans career is not only his

dedication to the science, but also his ability

to pursue new directions while establishing

collaborations ocused on nding solutions.

In Cygans case, such collaborations have not

simply maniested as by magic; in stead, he has

created space or them in his career in several

ways, most notably by the willingness to

accept the challenge o applying his scientic

expertise in a new eld such as environmental

physical chemistry, and by increasing his

understanding o potential collaborative

endeavors, such as by expanding his knowledge

o biotechnology through course work at the

University o New Mexico. With unding rom

the Ofce o Basic Energy Sciences and LDRD,

Cygan has translated this combination into

a career rich with rewards. About a decade

ago, an LDRD Ofce-Harvard University

Structure o water molecules in the nano-sized channels o a ze

material as obtained rom molecular dynamics simulation.


15/25


collaboration put him in contact with an

environmental study using atomic orce

microscopy examining limestone (calcium

carbonate) d issolution and its

eect on monuments, both

o antiquity, such as Mayan

ruins, and o US culture, such

as monuments in Washington,

DC. Because this entailed a oray

into quantication o the action

o bacteria, this constituted a

stretch into the lie sciences

or Cygan, and marked a new

unding niche or his uture

work, namely environmental

chemistry.

Part o the impetus or this

Harvard-Sandia interaction was

the Sandia Campus Executive

Program, unded through the

LDRD Ofces Strategic Partnerships investment

area. Cygan applauds this program or its benets

in helping students, promoting collaborations

with aculty, and helping move his own career in

new directions. A subsequent Campus Executive

motivated collaboration with University o

Notre Dame brought ve years o unding or

an environmental molecular sciences initiative

studying undamental processes entailed in

molecular contamination o soils, with bacterial

processes again at the oreront. Tis brought

Cygan additional experience and expertise and,

moreover, allowed him to apply his knowledge o

vibrational spectroscopy to zero-in on water and

its interaces with other materials.

Such interacial water studies became the ocus

o a large LDRD project, w ith numerous Sandiasta involved, and o which Cygan served as

one o our technical leads. Te project initially

assembled a workshop on the topic, drawing

about 60 participants, a select group o whom

became collaborators in the interacial water

LDRD. Now becoming established as a leader

in this area, Sandias water initiative drew

additional unding rom Congress. Subsequent

collaborations eventuated with the Bureau o

Reclamation and with the University o Illinois

(UI) National Science Foundation (NSF)-sponsored

Water CAMPWS (Center o Advanced Materials

or Water Purication o Water with Systems).

It all came out o LDRD, asserts Cygan about

this ruitul collaborative work; they would have

walked away i they hadnt seen the scholarly

publications rom Sandia. A memorandum

o understanding (MOU) now exists between

UI and Sandia, and according to Cygan, the

water CAMPWS sees Sandia as representing

DOE and t he National Laboratories in water

issues. Cygan also credits Senior Manager John

Merson or recognizing the need or a scientic

underpinning to examine the undamental

issues in membrane technologies, without which

science it would be difcult, i not impossible, to

improve the technologies. Te key issue here

is energy efciency: since it requires energy to

move salinated water through nanostructured

membrane water-selective pores, a deeper

scientic understanding may enable the abrication

o materials that will require a lower energy

expenditure during desalination. Add the problem

o membrane ouling through biolm ormation,

that is, growth o microorganisms on the

membrane surace, and one begins to appreciate

the scope o this challenge.

We need undamental science, and we need it

now, says Cygan, whose 2008 LDRD Award or

Excellence attests to the quality o his work during

a career progression that has led him to a position

o major player in a eld that was once possibly not

even on his list o science-career choices.

Modeling and Managing rom Petroleum to Proteins

Seamless TransitionsGrant Heelfnger

From the computational modeling o the

chemical physics o uids to the Sandia biouels

initiative such is the scope o the scientic

transition encompassed in the Sandia career

o Grant Heelnger. Moreover, in reecting

on what might seem to be twists and turns, but

what really eels more like a smooth, evolving

ow, Heelnger is unremitting i n his praise o

LDRD unding as the transitional acilitator:

I you look at my career path, I wouldnt be

here . . . or wouldnt have done what I did

without LDRD.

Arriving at Sandia a s a resource or petroleum

chemistry, in an initiative investigating oil and

gas storage, Grant discovered LDRD almost

by accident. Tis portal into LDRD unding

allowed Heelnger to consider the possibility

that his background, indeed his doctoral

work building sotware codes or molecular

dynamics, could be valuable in support o

several Laboratory missions involving gas

storage and absorption. He developed a code

that modeled molecular diusion under

conditions o a chemical potential gradient

through macromolecular assemblages, or

example, membranes or separating racemic

mixtures and drug d iusion through biological

membranes. Tese molecular-dynamics

modeling initiatives became cooperative eorts

with industrial partners, such as DuPont

and Bristol Myers Squibb, and ultimately led

to the LADERA variation o the LAMMPS

molecular dynamics code, released by Sandia

(and updated regularly) into public domain.

Some o the simulation work involved aging o

components in weapons s ystems, a key aspect

o stockpile stewardship.

With Grants background in writing code or

the precursors to massively parallel computers,

the advent o the ASCI project providedanother opportunity or career development.

In this instance, Heelngers experience

made him a logical candidate or a position as

ounding manager o the ASCI computational

material dynamics program.

During the late 1990s, hi s Grants path

inexorably orked into the lie sciences, as

interactions with academia were received by

Sandia upper management as the signal to

seriously plunge into lie science research.

With his material dynamics modeling expertise,

Grant became one o three logical department

managers to manage this eort in the materials

dynamics o biological systems.

LDRD was the cradle that nurtured thisinitiative, Grant unambivalently oers. With

clearly, no track record, and hence no readily

available unding rom other sources, including

the Ofce o Science, it had to be LDRD that

would gestate a biosciences capability or

Sandia. Te payo was rapid and signicant

a $36M project ($18M to Sandia) to participate

in the human genome initiative with Celera

Genomics, and an ambitious project to utilize

the complete genomic inormation o oceanic

It all came outof LDRD . . .

hey would have

walked away if

hey hadnt seen

he scholarly

publications fromSandia.

Structural model o the protein, rhodopsin, alone (top) and in th

context o a biological membrane (bottom), its unctional envir


16/25


carbon-xing cyanobacteria (blue-green algae)

to generate a deeper understanding o the

metabolic processes in this key component o

phytoplankton the base o the aquatic ood

web that removes carbon dioxide

rom the oceans and transorms

it, via photosynthesis, to

carbohydrates and ats (including

oils). Sandias current leadership

in the initiative to utilize such

algae as a potential source o oil-

based transportation uels (while

recycling carbon dioxide, CO2) is

an ospring o that initial project.

More importantly, Grant and

several o his collaborators

perceived this Sandia transition

as a wave that Sandia simply had

to catch and ride, its surboard

the incredible parallel capability in molecular

dynamics simulation. And LDRD was right

there, exactly where it was supposed to be

at the cutting edge making investments

in parallel computing and acilitating this

capability, which is so crucial to u nderstanding

the complexity o both individual proteins

and the molecular networks that regulate

biological processes. Grants prior work in

gradient-driven di usion through membranes,

in addition to other aspects o his work, was

now, immediately applicable to gradient-

driven diusion through the semipermeable

membranes o livi ng cells. And a lthough DOE

Ofce o Science unding rom the Genomes-

to-Lie project would be orthcoming, LDRD

investment preceded that unding, keeping

the initiative elegantly balanced atop that

wave. Both modeling and experimental aspectswere unded, including the rst applications

to the lie sciences o Sandias hyperspectral

microarray capability. (p.40)

For Grant Heelnger came the logical request

rom Sandia upper management to assist in

managing the Sandia biouels initiative, a

task in which he is currently engaged. Tis

represents a transition rom the uid dynamics

o storing Natures ancient sunlight gas and oil

to understanding and enhancing the molecular

dynamics o newly synthesized, Sunshine-

to-Petrol oils made with genetically and

proteomically engineered algae (among other

projects). In overview, the transition seems like

a logical one. But to smooth that transition, to

create a logical ow rom one arena to the other,

LDRD was there with seed unding to allow the

testing and actualization o the ideas required

to assist a sta member in developing and

enhancing necessary pieces o expertise.

And interestingly, Grant is able to step back and

see the entire landscape. Noting that LDRD

unding has assisted in allowing Sandia to hire

more scientists with a depth o experience in

molecular and cellular biology, Grant reects, as

the Laboratories biology eort matures, I expect

that there will come a time when someone will

replace me or the biouels initiative, and Ill

move on. Undoubtedly LDRD will be there to

acilitate those transitions, as well.

Seeding New Algorithmsand New Careers in National-Security Surveillance

The Opportunity o Blind AlleysKatherine Simonson

How does a doctorate in statistics translate

into multiple successul Sandia LDRD-unded

projects with denitive national-security

impact? Such an interesting and seemingly

unusual progression rames the career path o

Katherine Simonson. During an approximatelytwenty-year career at the Laboratories,

Simonsons work has ex hibited a undamental

ingenuity that characterizes successul LDRD

endeavor, and its collaborative scope has

impacted the careers o several other scientists.

It is no secret that persistent surveillance and

reconnaissance is conducted by the US, its al lies,

and its adversaries. And given the multiple

orms o national security threats, improving

the accuracy o such surveillance becomes

critical. But the myriad types o sensors that

survey the environment and relay inormation

to intelligence analysts suer rom a variety

o limitations that are currently best dealt

with by dev ising superior image-processing

algorithms. Such algorithms can compensate

or various sources o noise and other eects

in the collected images, such as jitter, which

generally denotes deviation or deect in a

digital signal, displacing that signal rom its

ideal position in time or space, and thereore,

causing artiacts in the signals arrivi ng rom

sensors.

Such problems are amenable to statistical

analysis, and or a statistician arriving at

Sandia, Simonson experienced an immediate

excitement about the diversity o work

ongoing.

Beginning in Sandias Statistics group, she

moved on to apply her skills to radar targetrecognition with a team developing and

rening algorithms or synthetic aperture

radar (SAR) data. It was at that time, almost

a decade into her participation in Sandia

programmatic work, that she applied or her

rst LDRD unding, but was unortunately

unsuccessul. But the attempt itsel was

indicative o the germination o new ideas.

Simonson perceived that what was lacking was

LDRD washe cradle that

nurtured this

[biological

ciences]

nitiative.

an entirely novel and global approach to

improving sensor-generated data.

Ultimately, Simonson persevered and received

LDRD unding or a proposal involving

improved geolocation rom space-based

sensors. Te statistics-based technique

developed under this program enabled a

new, higher-precision, edge-based method,

predicated on the premise that a lgorithms

must be able to provide a measure o the

statistical uncertainty associated with their

solutions, and thereore, be able to recognize

poor solutions. Tis prevents errors rom

propagating, meaning that the probability

that images would reveal artiacts, such as

due, or example, to the same monitored scene

experiencing weather changes (as rom a sunny

to a cloudy day), was greatly reduced.

Another unded LDRD project stemmed

rom the observation that so-called staring

radiometric sensors those constantly

monitoring environments to detect changesin electromagnetic radiation (visible and other

light) required advances to compensate

or artiacts in detection o changes in

scenes, arising rom sensor platorm jitter.

Analysts needed to know some estimate o

the condence or lack thereo that the

eatures o the scene detected as dierences

were actually signicant, or were, instead due

to jitter-induced artiacts. Te challenge was

With proper image registration, results o scene subtraction o the same scene at two time periods about one-minute apa

the appearance o new eatures in the scene, such as a number o people standing along a road on a ridge (indicated by t


17/25


to develop algorithms that could tell an analyst

what they knew and what they didnt.

In the intelligence arena, alse

alarms caused by jitter or by

weather changes constitute a

signiicant problem. And perect

rapid-ire precision is extremely

computationally intensive.

Simonsons cu rrent LDRD

project pursues a statistical

approach combining both

temporal and spatial variation

to weight each pixel in an image.

he result is a much better

measure o scene changes, at a

lower computational cost, which

also reports ewer alse-alarms.

And the algorithm knows what

it doesnt know; i its solution in

a particular case is not a good one, it reveals

that act to the intelligence analyst.

Tis algorithm appears to be generalizable

to dierent sensor systems, and a patent

application or the methodology has been

submitted. A co-author on that patent and on

a paper in preparation is ian Ma, who was

born in China and moved to the U.S. at age

11, Ater obtaining his MS at the University

o Illinois, Ma has really blossomed at

Sandia, according to Simonson. And a prior

publication, included Steven Drescher as an

author, a Sandian and UNM graduate student

who ound his MS thesis topic within his

work with Simonson. She sees this mentoring

o students and new sta as implicitly

encouraged by the LDRD process. What

a great experience or a graduate student,she observes; its un to watch them take

ownership o their work.

As this sensor-algorithms program continues

to grow, earning outside unding to solve

special types o detection and tracking

problems, Simonson reects on an important

point regarding the value o LDRD projects

in her career. Tis is the issue o blind

alleys, which in an LDRD project, can be

opportunities. Tree months into her rst

LDRD, she saw that what she had proposed

was not going to work, that she would need to

abandon the approach. But the right turn that

she took at that point turned out to be a boon,

leading to a more-powerul approach that

could solve more-difcult problems, one with

greater overall programmatic impact.

Simonson is unabashed in her praise o the

LDRD process as responsible or signicant

improvements in operational perormance in

the Sandia sensors program and a signicant

return-on-investment to Sandia rom the

programmatic unding rom outside agencies,

and is equally grateul or its contributionto enriching her career as both researcher,

colleague and mentor.

Applying Expertise toa Breadth o Discovery

Postdoc to Project LeadSeema Singh

A biophysicist utilizing Atomic Force

Microscopy (AFM) studying the structure

and unction o membrane proteins an

important class o biological molecules

regulating the unction o living cells

Seema Singh was introduced to Sandia as a

postdoctoral research associate, a 1996 Ph.D.

recipient rom the University o New Mexico,

at a time when Sandia was seeking to expand

its role in DOEs biosciences initiative. Playing

o this somewhat serendipitous connection,Singh came to Sandia, a biophysicist among

chemical engineers, some o whom were

examining problems with perhaps similar

physics underpinnings, but in inorganic

systems rather than biological ones. In that

sense, Seema became a linchpin in a transition,

and so rom the beginning, her career

investment at Sandia was marked as one both

o great challenge and great potential.

Introduced to Je Brinker (p.38), Seema

perceived several research directions that

2009 ldrd expanding

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