news

Applications Now Open for New Darleane Hoffman Fellowship

Applications for a new fellowship named for Nuclear Science Division scientist Darleane Hoffman are now being accepted. The fellowship is open to all postdocs who are working in fields related to the Department of Energy’s nuclear nonproliferation mission.

SNO+ researchers unveil new findings: reactor neutrinos detected by water

In this new paper in Physical Review Letters, researchers in the SNO+ Collaboration – including Gabriel Orebi Gann (Nuclear Science Division and UC Berkeley Physics Department) and Logan Lebanowski (UC Berkeley Physics and NSD Affiliate) – have reported the first signals in a water-filled Cherenkov neutrino detector from neutrinos emitted by a nuclear reactor. Their work is featured in a recent Physics Magazine article.

First Experimental Results from FRIB Led by NSD

A new DOE Office of Science Highlight features the first experimental results from FRIB from a team led by NSD’s Heather Crawford. See also our recent News Article.

_{The FRIB Decay Station initiator, with the VANDLE neutron detectors on the far side and the gamma-ray detectors on the near side. These detectors were installed for the first FRIB experiment.}
_{Image courtesy of FRIB Laboratory.}

Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accountability Moments

APS Ethics Committee

In 2019, the American Physical Society (APS) formed an Ethics Committee (EC), charged to provide guidance on how the APS can promote ethical behavior by members, and police unethical behavior, including scientific ethics (fabrication, falsification or plagiarism) and interpersonal misbehavior – sexual harassment or bullying, for example. EC member and NSD Senior Scientist Spencer Klein discussed EC activities at a recent NSD staff meeting and summarizes those activities here.

Under the guidance of the APS Board, the committee works in several areas. They review APS statements on ethics and propose new ones, as appropriate. They provide ethics education, through presentations and workshops at APS meetings, and articles in different publications, such as Physics Today.

The EC develops policies and procedures for the APS to handle reports of misconduct. There are two categories: incidents at APS meetings, and everything else. For incidents at APS meetings, the APS will immediately (i.e., during the meeting) investigate and react as appropriate, and can remove the perpetrator from the meeting if needed.

Other complaints are dealt with in a longer, more involved process, starting with an initial review by the APS Ombudsperson (an outside lawyer), review by the EC, and then by the APS Board. Appeals are also possible. The APS also asks nominators (and, later, nominees) if nominees for APS committees, offices, prizes or fellowships are known to have committed misconduct. Positive answers are followed up and action may be taken.

For non-meeting complaints, the APS will not investigate, but will react to complaints which include an investigatory report by other agencies, such as the employer or other agency. The non-investigation policy can be problematic, since investigatory reports are usually private, and not available to would-be complainants or the APS.

Although many people think that the APS should conduct investigations when needed, there are real challenges in doing so. It would require significant resources, and could open the door to lawsuits. Incidents reported to the APS will likely have previously been investigated by one or more groups. Witnesses (especially victims of sexual harassment) may not want to tell their story many times, and not everyone will trust or cooperate with a U. S.-based organization. There is also some risk that different investigations reach different conclusions.

But, with outside investigatory reports generally unavailable, without its own investigation, the APS may be unable to act, even against pervasive behavior. And that is clearly extremely awkward. The EC is continuing to grapple with this.

Recent DEI topics @ NSD Staff Meetings

January 10, 2023 – Update on the Mental Health Initiative and WD&E Deadlines
January 24, 2023 – Effective Teams
February 7, 2023 – APS Ethics Committee
February 21, 2023 – Outreach Opportunities
March 7, 2023 – K-12 Stem Programs
March 21, 2023 – Women’s History Month and Transgender Day of Visibility
April 4, 2023 – Inclusion and Equity in Science Publications

Luminary Cards

To recognize their efforts in the area(s) of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accountability, the following people received a Luminary Card:

Spencer Klein

Applied Nuclear Physics Program Aiding Clean-up of Cold War-Era Radioactive Contamination through Radiological Mapping

From 1955–1988, low-level waste solutions from the processing of uranium and irradiated nuclear fuel were discharged into unlined earthen storage basins at the Savannah River Site (SRS) F-Area [1]. Over the decades, radioactive contaminants including uranium and iodine-129 (I-129) have leaked out of the basins and into the groundwater of the surrounding wetlands, and are now present at levels that exceed regulatory thresholds.

Figure 1: Hansell Gonzalez-Raymat of SRNL carries LBNL’s MiniPRISM radiation imager through the SRS F-Area wetlands.

In March 2023, scientists from NSD’s Applied Nuclear Physics (ANP) program returned to the SRS F-Area wetlands to conduct handheld gamma-ray surveys in order to map the intensity and spatial distribution of radioactive contaminants in the area. Using ANP’s Scene Data Fusion (SDF) radiological mapping technology (see, e.g., [2]), roughly 0.25 km² of dense forested wetlands were surveyed. Several uranium hotspots (up to roughly five times higher than the SRS natural background) were identified, and more detailed analysis is ongoing both to refine the mapping results and to examine possible yearly variations compared to measurements from the team’s 2022 campaign. In Fig. 1, a Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) scientist can be seen carrying LBNL’s MiniPRISM radiation imager through the SRS-F Area wetlands. Fig. 2 shows SDF results, including a preliminary reconstruction of low energy gamma-ray intensities during one survey. In addition to the SDF mapping systems that are sensitive to uranium radioactivity, LBNL is exploring whether silicon drift detectors are a viable technology to map the I-129 in situ. These efforts are part of the larger DOE-EM ALTEMIS project, which aims to develop long-term remediation and monitoring strategies for contaminated DOE legacy sites and have used the F-Area wetlands as a test bed.

Figure 2: Left: ground height estimation of a mapped area at the SRS F-Area. Right: preliminary reconstruction of low-energy gamma-ray intensities during a single survey. Hotspots are visible in the seepage areas towards the bottom of the map and are clearly distinguishable from low-activity areas.

Jayson Vavrek, Brian Quiter and Joanna Szornel collected the data in March 2023 with support from the Savannah River Site. Carol Eddy-Dilek (SRNL) and Haruko Murakami-Wainwright (MIT/LBNL) are Lead and Co-Lead of the DOE ALTEMIS project supporting this work. Zexuan Xu (LBNL EESA) is the LBNL PI.

[1] Biogeochemical gradients as a framework for understanding waste‐site evolution, M. Denham and K. Vangelas, Remediation Journal: The Journal of Environmental Cleanup Costs, Technologies & Techniques 19.1 (2008), DOI: 10.1002/rem.20188
[2] Free-moving quantitative gamma-ray imaging, D. Hellfeld et al., Scientific Reports 11 (2021), DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-99588-z

Service awards

APS Ethics Committee

Recent DEI topics @ NSD Staff Meetings

Luminary Cards