Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and National Nuclear Security Administration head Jill Hruby are too legit to quit. In mid-May, the pair hosted former rapper and “science enthusiast” MC Hammer at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Livermore California.
Hruby included a photo of the three of them, along with Kim Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore Lab, in the NIF in the May edition of the NNSACast newsletter. Livermore later tweeted several pictures of Hammer touring the facility with Granholm.
Science enthusiast MC Hammer, DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Livermore Director Kim Budil.
“Fusion ignition is one of the most significant scientific challenges ever tackled and has drawn interest and support from all over the world – including from Bay Area science enthusiast” MC Hammer, Livermore tweeted. “Science is 2 Legit 2 Quit!” the lab said in another tweet.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will be conducting an annual prescribed burn at its Site 300 experimental test site south of Tracy, Calif., beginning this week.
Performed by the Alameda County Fire Department, the burn is to help prevent seasonal wildfires from spreading to or from Site 300.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Livermore Field Office hosted the Secretary, me and other NNSA leaders, congressional representatives, collaborators, industry partners, and employees
Effective June 26, Jordan Hibbs will join the Office of the Administrator as the new senior advisor to National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Principal Deputy Administrator Frank Rose.
Hibbs currently serves as an advisor and regional coordinator for Europe, Russia, and multilateral matters for the Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation. She also has experience in nuclear policy, deterrence strategy, and nuclear security at the National Nuclear Security Administrations and with the Department of Defense, where she served as a senior advisor and the deputy director for nuclear incident response and NATO nuclear relations in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Office of Nuclear Matters (ODASD/NM).
Hibbs takes over for Jill Zubarev who has served as Rose’s assistant since becoming the NNSA’s second-in-command in 2021. Zubarev will take a new position at the Office of Partnership and Acquisition Services.
Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) signed a memorandum of understanding with Dynetics at the Tennessee Valley Corridor National Summit today. This agreement provides an opportunity for the Y‑12 National Security Complex and Dynetics to strategically partner to support nuclear and national security.
CNS operates the Y‑12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, along with the Pantex Plant, located in Amarillo, Texas, for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration. Dynetics, a subsidiary of Leidos headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, is a leading provider of advanced, mission‑critical services and solutions to the U.S. Government. Their portfolio of innovative capabilities includes hypersonics, force protection, space, and other advanced solutions.
“Working with industrial partners like Dynetics allows us to develop high‑impact technologies and improve essential skills to support our national security mission,” said Rich Tighe, president and CEO of CNS.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Lori Diachin will take over as director of the Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project (ECP) on June 1, guiding the successful, multi-institutional high-performance computing effort through its final stages.
Diachin, who is currently the principal deputy associate director for Livermore’s Computing Directorate, has served as ECP’s deputy director since 2018. She succeeds Doug Kothe, who will join Sandia National Laboratories on June 5 to become the chief research officer and associate labs director of Sandia’s Advanced Science and Technology Division. Diachin will report to Oak Ridge National Laboratory Interim Director Jeff Smith in her new ECP capacity.
“I feel incredibly honored and humbled to be selected for this role; it is the largest computing project in DOE history and will have a tremendous impact on computational science for the next decade and beyond,” Diachin said. “We are eager and excited to show the success and impact that the applications and software technologies we have developed for the exascale systems will have on problems of national importance.”
Emergency responders from the U.S. Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, along with federal, state and local emergency management personnel, will conduct an emergency exercise on June 7 at at the lab, the Oak Ridger reports.
Emergency responders will simulate response activities and perform environmental monitoring or sampling in the area surrounding the Oak Ridge Reservation. The University of Tennessee Medical Center’s LifeStar air ambulance helicopter will be flying to and from the Oak Ridge Reservation as part of the exercise, which begins around 9 a.m. and is scheduled to end around 3:30 p.m on June 7.
