November 14, 2011 — Petro Maksymovych of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences has earned the Director's Award for Outstanding Individual Accomplishment in Science and Technology.
Maksymovych earned his award during tonight's UT-Battelle Awards Night dinner in Knoxville, for pioneering discoveries of electrical conductivity in normally insulating oxide materials which can be switched on and off by an applied voltage. This creates opportunities for extremely small and energy efficient memory devices and sensors.
He had earlier in the evening been presented the Early Career Award for Scientific Accomplishment.
Suzy Tichenor of ORNL's Computing and Computational Sciences Directorate earned the Director's Award for Outstanding Individual Accomplishment in Laboratory Operations.
Tichenor was honored for outstanding leadership in the creation and launch of ORNL's High Performance Computing Industrial Partnerships Program. She earlier earned the award for Administrative and Operational Leadership at the Director Level.
Sherry Livengood of ORNL's Engineering and Energy Sciences Directorate was presented with the Director's Award for Outstanding Individual Accomplishment in Community Outreach.
Livengood was recognized for more than 15 years of volunteer community service to impoverished families in Anderson County and East Tennessee.
She was earlier presented the award for Individual Community Outreach.
The Director's Award for Outstanding Team Accomplishment went to a group that worked on the licensing of the Alumina-Forming Austenitic (AFA) steel family to Carpenter Technology Corp. earlier this year. The team consisted of Craig Blue, Michael Brady, Alex DeTrana, Alan Liby, Joe Marasco, Phil Maziasz, Bruce Pint, Michael Santella and Yukinori Yamamoto.
The citation noted the development and licensing of AFA steels, a revolutionary new class of heat-resistant steels for higher energy production and chemical process industry applications.
The group had earlier earned the UT-Battelle Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer.
ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy's Office of Science.