2008 Woodie Awards
Oak Ridge affiliation pairs U. with national lab
Anna Abramson
Issue date: 11/29/06 Section: Campus News
After securing approval from the Brown Corporation in the spring, the University has entered into an official research affiliation with Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
The collaboration, currently Brown's only such affiliation with a national laboratory, connects researchers at Brown with those at Oak Ridge, which is owned by the Department of Energy and managed by the University of Tennessee-Battelle.
The relationship allows faculty to conduct research and use equipment at Oak Ridge. Additionally, researchers from the laboratory can teach courses, guest lecture or participate in research projects at Brown.
The idea for the collaboration originally came from former Provost Robert Zimmer, according to Vice President for Research Clyde Briant. As vice president for research at the University of Chicago - where he is now president - Zimmer had seen the benefits of that university's longstanding relationship with Argonne National Laboratory.
Briant already knew the director of Oak Ridge, a colleague in the field of materials engineering, and also became involved in discussions starting in 2003. The official agreement "grew out of those discussions, but it took several years to refine and decide how it would finally be approved," Briant said.
Briant added that the relationship is "about having more opportunities both for people at Oak Ridge and at Brown."
Oak Ridge, which was founded as part of the Manhattan Project in 1943, is a large lab with about 4,500 employees that focuses on energy research and development, said Ted Besmann, a group leader in the materials science and technology division at Oak Ridge who has also taught at Brown. The work done at Oak Ridge "spans the gamut of scientific disciplines from biology to social sciences," Besmann said, noting that the lab was involved in the Human Genome Project - which looked at the genetic makeup of humans - and has strengths in materials science and computing.
Oak Ridge is "able to do large-scale science that most universities just can't do," Briant said. For example, in the area of electron microscopy, "they have some of the very best microscopes in the world," he said.
The collaboration, currently Brown's only such affiliation with a national laboratory, connects researchers at Brown with those at Oak Ridge, which is owned by the Department of Energy and managed by the University of Tennessee-Battelle.
The relationship allows faculty to conduct research and use equipment at Oak Ridge. Additionally, researchers from the laboratory can teach courses, guest lecture or participate in research projects at Brown.
The idea for the collaboration originally came from former Provost Robert Zimmer, according to Vice President for Research Clyde Briant. As vice president for research at the University of Chicago - where he is now president - Zimmer had seen the benefits of that university's longstanding relationship with Argonne National Laboratory.
Briant already knew the director of Oak Ridge, a colleague in the field of materials engineering, and also became involved in discussions starting in 2003. The official agreement "grew out of those discussions, but it took several years to refine and decide how it would finally be approved," Briant said.
Briant added that the relationship is "about having more opportunities both for people at Oak Ridge and at Brown."
Oak Ridge, which was founded as part of the Manhattan Project in 1943, is a large lab with about 4,500 employees that focuses on energy research and development, said Ted Besmann, a group leader in the materials science and technology division at Oak Ridge who has also taught at Brown. The work done at Oak Ridge "spans the gamut of scientific disciplines from biology to social sciences," Besmann said, noting that the lab was involved in the Human Genome Project - which looked at the genetic makeup of humans - and has strengths in materials science and computing.
Oak Ridge is "able to do large-scale science that most universities just can't do," Briant said. For example, in the area of electron microscopy, "they have some of the very best microscopes in the world," he said.