Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Accelerating scientific discovery for our clean energy future ⚡🔋 We’re teaming up with Microsoft to harness AI and large-scale cloud computing to explore promising energy storage materials to help preserve Earth’s resources for future generations. 🌎 Learn more about our collaboration ⤵️

As a child, Vishvas Chalishazar, Ph.D. wanted to be an actor. But as a student in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, he had a choice: go into science or commerce. Vishvas was “always a troubleshooter" and knew it was a must-have quality as an engineer, so he chose science. 👨🔬 Vishvas earned his bachelor’s degree in Dubai and then journeyed to Oregon, a state he described as “right on top of California” to his friends and family back home, to attend Oregon State University and its world-renowned engineering programs. While at OSU, Vishvas worked with Professor Ted Brekken to collaborate on projects with Portland General Electric (PGE). He carried those relationships into his career at PNNL, where he now works with PGE on wildfire-related research. 🔥 During #AANHPIHeritageMonth, we celebrate the diverse backgrounds and perspectives that staff bring to PNNL. Vishvas says that one of the things he looks forward to each spring is the international dinners that his PNNL mentor, Jim Follum, introduced him to. 🌍 “Staff who are from all parts of the world make at least one dish and we get together to eat and discuss our interests and backgrounds,” Vishvas said. “We share our cultures through food.”

🌬 Don't miss the chance to blow us away with your distributed wind photos! Submit your contribution to our Distributed Wind Photo Search by Friday, May 31. 📷 Learn more ⤵

New research led by scientists from Washington State University and PNNL shows that over the course of just a few days, a night shift schedule can knock the body's biological rhythms off course, disrupting important processes related to blood glucose regulation, energy metabolism, and inflammation. “What we showed is that we can really see a difference in molecular patterns between volunteers with normal schedules and those with schedules that are misaligned with their biological clock,” said computational scientist Jason McDermott.

“An AI-empowered grid could make autonomous decisions to manage load and generation in real-time.” —Steven Ashby, Laboratory Director

“I look forward to representing PNNL as a leader in radiological protection, regulation, and risk assessment.” Congratulations to environmental health physicist Jonathan Napier on being selected for a 4-year term as a delegate to the International Radiation Protection Association’s General Assembly.

A new twist on molecular assemblies 🧬 PNNL materials scientist Chun-Long Chen found a way to control the "handedness" of corkscrew-like peptoid helices, a key step toward precision drug delivery and diagnostics. Learn more ⤵️

Do we have enough groundwater to meet future need? 💧 PNNL researchers found that, by mid-century, nearly half the world’s population could live in areas where groundwater will become so costly as to raise regional food prices and significantly alter the geography of trade and crop production. “Water is, of course, among the most important resources we manage,” said Earth scientist Thomas Wild. “Understanding our future with groundwater—all water, really—requires that we must understand it holistically. That means understanding how water withdrawal interacts with energy demand, with food production, with the extraction of raw materials, and more. And that’s what we’ve set out to show in this work.”

PNNL brings “science to problems that have national significance, providing information that can have a big difference on the ground during and after an event.” From hurricanes, to wildfires, to earthquakes—our researchers are working to protect both human lives and critical infrastructure.

Investigating the impacts of exercise at the molecular level 🔬 In the largest study to date to explore how exercise affects the body, researchers found that vigorous exercise burns fat more in males than in females.