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Improving Argonne's employee performance evaluation process will be the goal of a special committee chaired by Advanced Photon Source Associate Laboratory Director Murray Gibson.
The committee will study the performance evaluation process and make recommendations to Argonne Director Hermann Grunder for improving the effectiveness of the process.
"I am delighted to put my time and energy into this, since the job satisfaction of employees is paramount for Argonne's success," Gibson said. "Performance evaluation is an important tool for rewarding employees and fostering their career development."
Members of the committee include Kathy Harkay (ASD), Barry Lesht (ER), Mike Lineberry (ERA, Argonne-West), Gwendolyn Morrison (PFS), Liz Stefanski (OTD) and Ray Teller (IPNS). Charlyne Robinson (HR) will serve as executive secretary. Committee members were chosen in consultation with Argonne's associate laboratory directors.
The committee will evaluate the annual performance appraisal process used for non-union Argonne employees, both exempt and non-exempt. A final report will be ready by mid-summer.
Employee input is welcome. Submit ideas to committee members or to Charlyne Robinson, who can keep submissions anonymous by request. Contact Robinson at crobinson@ anl.gov or ext. 2-8786.
A plan to bring environmental researchers at the University of Chicago and Argonne together in a single organization took a first step toward realization with approval of $500,000 in initial funding.
"Collaboration in the environmental sciences has been accidental and sporadic," said John Frederick, professor of atmospheric science at the university. "We and Argonne both have researchers working in these areas, but often they haven't been aware of each other's efforts and resources. This center will bring them together in a big way."
Frederick, Jeffrey Gaffney, senior scientist in Argonne's Environmental Research Division, and others summarized their vision for an Environmental Science Center in mid-2001. It caught the attention of U.S. Reps. Judy Biggert and Bobby Rush, who included the Center for Environmental Science in the fiscal 2002 Environmental Protection Agency appropriation.
Researchers at the center will study urban air quality, climate and ways to improve environmental forecasting. "I can't think of two better qualified institutions to help close the gap between environmental science and policymaking," said Biggert.
Barry Lesht, associate director of ER, said researchers will also look at more subtle aspects of air quality, such as how small quantities of toxic pollutants affect humans, and will refine predictive models used to forecast environmental and climatic conditions by combining computer models with information collected from ground stations and satellites.
Measurements will include data from oceanic, atmospheric and terrestrial ecological systems and on solar radiation. Results will have significant implications for human and animal health and agricultural productivity.
Plus, the center will become a place for rigorous environmental science education, with Argonne researchers teaching at the university and university faculty members working at Argonne.
Frederick said, "Environmental science has a soft reputation in some circles. Here, the rigors of chemistry, statistics and environmental biology will be brought to bear."
"It's being able to get the best people together to ask the best questions and come up with the best answers," Gaffney said.
Fully realizing the vision, however, will take more money. The initial proposal sought $2.6 million. The three researchers plan to have the center running by next summer with the $500,000 covering an administrator, office space and some seed money for research. Longer range, it would include 25 to 30 researchers and an equal number of undergraduate and graduate students.
-- Rich Greb
Argonne employees can receive a reduced ticket price for "Copenhagen," a Tony-Award-winning play about the historical meeting between Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg as imagined by playwright Michael Frayn.
Tickets are available at $20 off per pair for performances at Chicago's Schubert Theatre Sunday, Feb. 10, at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 12, at 7:30 p.m. or Wednesday, Feb. 13, at 7:30 p.m.
To purchase tickets at this special price call (312) 902-1400, visit any Broadway In Chicago box office (22 W. Monroe, 24 W. Randolph or 151 W. Randolph in downtown Chicago) or visit Ticketmaster online. Use the code "MATOM" when ordering.
The "Copenhagen Symposium" will offer a panel discussion of the play and its themes on Sat., Feb. 16, from 3-5 p.m. in the auditorium of the Oriental Institute at 1155 E. 58th St., Chicago. University of Chicago Professor Doug Duncan will moderate the discussion. Call Roger Smart for information at (773) 702-8874. For more information about the play, visit the show's Web site.
Argonne's Office of Counterintelligence wants your "spam" -- all of it.
Any unsolicited e-mail received by employees at their work computers should be forwarded to spam@anl.gov. The Counterintelligence Office, the Office of Safeguards and Security, and the Cyber Security Office will analyze the messages in an effort to take an integrated approach to addressing the issue of unsolicited e-mail.
The effort is an expansion of a program begun late last year, when the Counterintelligence Office requested that all employees report the receipt of unsolicited e-mail from sensitive countries.
For more information, call Steve Fuller, Office of Counterintelligence, at ext. 2-6766; Howard Filler, Office of Safeguards and Security, at ext. 2-7890; or John Volmer, Cyber Security Office, at ext. 2-3456.
Seventeen-year-old Wenyi Cai was the youngest winner ever of a student poster presentation award at the 11th User Meeting at the Advanced Photon Source (APS).
The Naperville Central High School senior won for her poster titled "Quantitative and Time-resolved Characterization of Highly Transient Gasoline Sprays by X-radiography." The poster was based on work Cai did as a student appointee working with Advanced Photon Source staff scientist Jin Wang. All other students participating in the competition were graduate students from major research universities.
Cai came to work at the laboratory in the summer of 2001. It was her first scientific hands-on experience. She said she enjoyed working with something concrete instead of learning abstract principles in class.
Cai created a computer model based on data Wang and his colleagues obtained from using the APS and other synchrotron radiation facilities to study gasoline direct injection sprays. Such an analysis promises a better understanding of fuel spray characteristics, which may lead to higher fuel efficiency and lower pollutant emissions in internal combustion engines.
"She started without knowing how difficult it is, and after her first week was able to write a report," said Wang. "She is quite remarkable. What she did here is up to any level or standard you can impose."
"Wenyi's accomplishments show what a valuable contribution students can make to the laboratory," said Harold Myron, director of Argonne's educational programs.
Based on her summer of research at Argonne, Cai entered this year's Siemens-Westinghouse science competition, where she advanced to the Midwest regional competition finals. She has won other national academic awards including two Siemens Advanced Placement Awards. "I'm happy with what I've been able to do and excited there's even more to do," she said about continuing work with Wang.
Cai is quick to point out that science isn't her only interest. Besides being a member of the math team, she's a member of student council; captain of the badminton team; editor of the school newspaper; and is a member of the mock trial team.
Cai's next challenge will be to decide where she wants to attend college. She has applied to Harvard, MIT and Stanford University. And while her academic excellence makes her a standout for her age, there's one way she's still like every other soon-to-be freshman -- she doesn't know yet what her major will be. "I want to go to a good school that has a wide variety of choices and make my decision there," she said.
-- Donna Jones Pelkie
Argonne physicist Dongqi Li (MSD) is one of only seven "early career" scientists selected to attend the first International Conference on Women in Physics in Paris, March 7-9.
Sponsored by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), the conference seeks to understand the severe under-representation of women in physics worldwide and to develop strategies to increase their participation.
Li and other members of the delegation will use the IUPAP meeting as a platform for re-introducing a national dialogue about the situation of women in physics in the United States.
More information can be found on the conference Web site.
Argonne-East will host a Technology Demonstration Day Tuesday, Jan. 29, to open a venture development competition for university students.
The competition, open to teams of students from universities nationwide, asks the students to develop plans to commercialize one of the new technologies being researched at Argonne.
On Jan. 29, the students will hear presentations by four innovative Argonne scientists who have made recent scientific discoveries in advanced materials, energy storage, lasers and optics and nanotechnology. The students will then select one of the technologies and create a development plan for it.
Argonne scientists and their research areas are:
George Fenske (ET), advanced
materials, including a super-slick and very strong coating for metals and plastics.
John Hull (ET), energy storage,
including several innovative techniques for holding excess energy for later use without any loss.
Mike Pellin (MSD), lasers and optics,
including a new technique for trace analysis of samples no larger than a micron -- much smaller
than the period at the end of this sentence.
Jeff Eastman (MSD), nanotechnology,
including a new technology for adding tiny spherical particles to a conventional fluid that
improves its ability to transfer heat by 40 percent.
Teams of students from undergraduate or graduate programs in science, technology, or entrepreneurship will be encouraged to participate in the competition. To qualify, each team must prepare and submit an official "Technology Application Plan," developed by Jerome M. Juska, president of Technology Transformations, Inc., sponsor of this academic program.
Project entries will be evaluated by Argonne scientists and a group of venture formation experts. Semifinalists will be invited for a final presentation May 1.
Don Joyce, deputy to the director, said, "As worldwide leaders in advanced scientific research, it is most appropriate that we engage in projects that enable students to benefit from our knowledge and expand their own visions of technology based on the foundations that Argonne has created."
-- Catherine Foster
The deadline for applications for the 2003 Maria Goeppert Mayer Distinguished Scholar Award is Thursday, Jan. 31.
Divisions or departments intending to submit an application should contact Maryka Bhattacharyya (BIO) at mhbhatt@anl.gov.
Each year, Argonne grants the Maria Goeppert Mayer Distinguished Scholar award to an outstanding woman scientist or engineer. The award, named for the Argonne physicist who won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1963, enables the scholar to conduct innovative research using Argonne's resources.
If your check to the American Red Cross has not been cashed, you are not alone.
"An American Red Cross spokesperson told me that it has had such an overwhelming response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack that it is months behind in logging in and cashing the contributions," said Evelyn Brown, Argonne Combined Appeal co-chair.
The checks should be cashed soon. The good news is that since the checks were written and contributed during 2001, contributors can still count them as 2001 income tax deductions, Brown said.
The Argonne Guest House will celebrate Mardi Gras with special menus Feb. 11-12.
The restaurant will offer such New Orleans dishes as fresh oysters on the half shell, crab cakes, jambalaya and blackened swordfish. A full menu will be posted on the Guest House Web site.
Guest House dinner hours are 5-8 p.m.