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 scientific community thinks of Oak Ridge as being number one for neutron facilities - their nuclear reactor is a state of the art facility," said Professor of Engineering Brian Sheldon, who has worked at Oak Ridge and continues to interact with researchers there.
Several Brown faculty members had existing connections with Oak Ridge prior to the formal affiliation. Sheldon worked at Oak Ridge after graduate school and has continued to collaborate with researchers there. Besmann taught a short course at Brown in the summer of 2005 and was on campus last week teaching a portion of a graduate thermodynamics course. For the next month, students in Sheldon's class will continue to consult with Besmann through e-mail. Sheldon said having Besmann teach a section of the class adds "a level of expertise" that would not otherwise be provided.
Sheldon said while interactions between Brown faculty and Oak Ridge were already occurring, the official agreement "pushed the enterprise forward and encouraged us to act."
Like Briant, Besmann said he thinks both institutions benefit from the relationship. "The lab benefits from students' help and exchange of ideas, from intellectual interactions with faculty and getting another viewpoint," he said. "Brown has well-respected faculty that are leaders in their field."
Professors won't be the only ones who can take advantage of the affiliation. Briant said he thinks graduate students in particular stand to benefit. Grad students will be able to pursue opportunities with Oak Ridge such as spending time researching at the lab, having a joint adviser there, using equipment and gaining exposure to another community of scientists, Briant said.
Besmann said doctoral candidates will be able to conduct research or finish their thesis work at the lab, which allows students to work in a "100-percent" research environment.
Students in classes at Brown will benefit from guest lectures or intensive courses taught by Oak Ridge researchers. Though the collaboration is currently targeted at grad students, Briant said undergraduates could also become involved in the future.
Sheldon noted that there are ways for undergraduates to get involved through seminars held on campus or pursuing a summer internship at Oak Ridge.
He added that associations with research institutions are important for the kind of materials science work being done at Brown. "There are so many ways of making and probing materials, you could never be good at them all," he said. "Because we are so interdisciplinary, we routinely go looking for others to help us, and an established relationship is better than going all over the place trying to find" collaborators.
Briant said the relationship with Oak Ridge underscores a broader effort to expand research opportunities for Brown.
"We see it as an open door for researchers at Brown, a chance for the faculty to have connections and collaborations, access to colleagues and equipment," Briant said.
