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News Briefs: July 31, 2009

DDLS speaker to focus on climate change

Robert Socolow, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and co-director of The Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton University, will present "Technology, Policy and Values for Living in a Greenhouse," at 2 p.m. Monday, Aug. 3, in the Bldg. 123 auditorium. The growing prosperity of our species and the smallness of our planet are in collision. Fresh thinking is required to understand the world’s predicament and options, to manage geoengineering, to rethink "fairness" across countries and to understand how our time on Earth relates to future time. Climate change provides good points of entry into this new domain. Every "solution" carries its own risks. The first step is to reason on a planetary scale and to understand the numbers. Socolow received a Ph.D. in theoretical high-energy physics in l964 from Harvard University. He was an assistant professor of physics at Yale University from l966 to l97l.  In 2003, he was awarded the Leo Szilard Lectureship Award by the American Physical Society: "For leadership in establishing energy and environmental problems as legitimate research fields for physicists, and for demonstrating that these broadly defined problems can be addressed with the highest scientific standards." The Carbon Mitigation Initiative is a joint project of Princeton University, BP and the Ford Motor Company to find solutions to the greenhouse and global warming problem. The Carbon Mitigation Initiative is a part of the Princeton Environmental Institute.

Poster symposium to highlight students’ work

The annual Summer Student Poster Symposium is the culmination of the students’ research experience. It provides a forum to present research, network and engage other researchers, as well as expand their skills and knowledge within their academic fields of study.

This year, 82 posters will be presented by 90 participants, making up 38 percent of the summer student population and  representing the following directorates:  Engineering (10), Computation(19), Physical & Life Sciences (42), Global Security (2), NIF & Photon Science (6), Weapons & Complex Integration (8), Director's Office(1) and Facilities and Infrastructure(2).

"The poster symposium has been well attended in past years and we hope this will continue this summer," said Barry Goldman, manager of the Lab’s Institutional Education Committee (IEC) and targeted internship programs.

Goldman explained that this year, in addition to a new venue in the Bldg. 543 atrium, there is a new evaluation form that will be available for Lab employees to critique student posters. Completing an evaluation form is voluntary. The input will be shared with the presenter as well as used to identify the better posters.

DOE is hosting the 2009 Science and Energy Research Challenge (SERCh) Poster Competition on Nov. 8-9, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The evaluations will help LLNL to nominate the top posters. Student researchers will vie for awards in each of five categories: 1st, 2nd and 3rd place, for $3,000, $1,500 and $1,000 scholarships, respectively. One overall winner will receive a grand prize scholarship of a total of $10,000 ($3,000 for 1st category and $7,000 for overall winner).

"We encourage all employees to attend the poster symposium and support our summer students and all their efforts," Goldman said. 

For more information, contact goldman1 [at] llnl.gov ( Goldman ) at 422-5177.

July 31, 2009