OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 26, 2010 -- Four scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been named fellows of the American Physical Society.
The APS recognized Carl Gross, Dan Shapira, Matthew Chisholm and Rajesh Maingi for their work in a range of physics-related disciplines. Fewer than one half of one percent of APS members are elected to become fellows.
Gross, a researcher in ORNL's Physics Division, was cited for enabling the studies of most exotic atomic nuclei through the invention and implementation of novel experimental methods.
His work includes development of a "ranging out" technique for beta- decay studies of neutron-rich radioactive beams that has enabled the counting, identification and purification of radioactive samples.
Gross received his degrees at Florida State University, including his doctorate in 1987, and arrived at ORNL in 1992. The Florida native and his wife, Dorothea Wiarda, live in the Karns community of Knoxville.
Shapira was cited for contributions to the study of nuclear collisions: the discovery of nuclear orbiting, pioneering measurements of the space-time extent of particle-emitting sources, and seminal studies of fusion with n-rich exotic beams, and for development of innovative instrumentation to enable these studies.
Since joining ORNL's Physics Division in 1976, he has worked in different capacities on the study of nuclear reactions and instrumentation development, including research at ORNL's Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility.
Shapira, a native of Israel, completed undergraduate studies at the Israeli Institute of Technology in Haifa. He received his graduate and doctoral degrees from Yale University and performed postdoctoral research at the University of Rochester, New York. Shapira and his wife, Hanna, live in Oak Ridge where they have raised two children.
Chisholm, a researcher in the Materials Science and Technology Division, was cited by the APS's Division of Materials Physics for pioneering contributions to materials and interface physics through scanning transmission electron microscopy.
His research has concentrated on the atomic and electronic structure of defects and interfaces in materials. He has been instrumental in the co-development of a new imaging technique that can directly reveal individual atoms.
Chisholm received his doctorate in materials science from Carnegie-Mellon University. He is the author of more than 180 publications and has given more than 30 invited talks at international conferences. He and his wife, Katherine, live in Oak Ridge where they have raised four children.
Maingi, who is on a long-term assignment at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, was cited for physics research and demonstration of plasma density control in fusion devices, and for the discovery of a new class of instabilities in plasmas.
He received a doctorate in nuclear engineering from North Carolina State University in 1992, became an ORNL employee in 1997 and was assigned to PPPL in 1999. Maingi and his wife, Nola, reside in Plainsboro Township, N.J.
ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy Office of Science.
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