FIU Research Review 2017: DOE-FIU Cooperative Agreement

Miami, Fla

On July 18^th and 19^th, the Applied Research Center (ARC) at Florida International University conducted a review of the research program sponsored by the US Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM). The research review was led by the Principal Investigator (PI) for the DOE-FIU Cooperative Agreement (Dr. Leo Lagos), ARC staff and FIU’s DOE Fellows (http://fellows.fiu.edu). The meeting was conducted by video teleconference (VTC) and was attended by representatives from DOE HQ (Forrestal and Germantown facilities in Washington DC and Maryland, respectively), Office of River Protection DOE Field Office (Richland, WA), DOE Carlsbad Field Office (Carlsbad, NM), Savannah River National Lab (Aiken, SC), Pacific Northwest National Lab (Richland, WA), Washington River Protection Solutions (Richland, WA), Los Alamos National Lab (Carlsbad, NW location), Sandia National Lab (Albuquerque, NM), University of Texas – Austin and the Applied Research Center (Miami, Fla).

A total of four technical presentations were provided, covering the 4 main research areas of the Cooperative Agreement (High Level Waste/Waste Processing, Soil/Groundwater Environmental Remediation, Deactivation/Decommissioning and Information Technology research and STEM Workforce Development and Training). The presentations were led by ARC’s program leads (Dr. Dwayne McDaniel, Dr. Yelena Katsenovich, Dr. Himanshu Upadhyay, Mr. Joe Sinicrope, and Dr. Leo Lagos). Additional presentations were delivered by ARC Post-Doctoral Associates (Dr. Hilary Emerson and Dr. Mehrnoosh Mahmoudi) and Ms. Angelique Lawrence. Our DOE Fellows also participated and presented their DOE EM research conducted at FIU’s ARC, as well as, their PhD dissertations and Master’s thesis topics. DOE Fellows presenting their research included Hansell Gonzalez-Raymat (PhD student), Silvina Di Pietro (PhD student), Maximiliano Edrei (Master Student), and Awmna Rana (undergraduate student). In addition, several DOE Fellows participating in summer 2017 internships at DOE facilities across the US were able to join the VTC and present their summer research. These presentations included: Juan Morales and Mohammed Albassam (interning at DOE HQ Germantown facility), Ron Hariprashad (internship at Savannah River Ecology Lab/Savannah River National Lab), Frances Zengotita (interning at Los Alamos National Lab), Alexander Piedra (interning at Savannah River National Lab), Sebastian Zanlongo (interning at Sandia National Lab) and Michael Di Bono (interning at University of Texas – Austin). Key participation of additional ARC staff included Ms. Peggy Shoffner and Mr. Walter Quintero, as well as, ARC scientists, engineers and students.

DOE HQ representatives included Mr. Barton Barnhart (Director, Office of Infrastructure Mgmt. & Disposition Policy, DOE-EM), Mr. John De Gregory (DOE Technical Monitor), Ms. Genia McKinley (DOE Co- Technical Monitor), Mr. Kurt Gerdes (Director, DOE EM), and Mr. Skip Chamberlain (Sr. Program Manager).

Presentations and additional information regarding the DOE-FIU Cooperative Agreement are available at https://doeresearch.fiu.edu

For additional information please contact: Dr. Leonel Lagos (DOE-EM Cooperative Agreement, PI) at LagosL@fiu.edu

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