CDAC Science at the 2021 SSAP Symposium
The 2021 Stewardship Science Academic Programs (SSAP) Symposium was held in virtual mode from February 16th through the 18th. Principal Investigators for SSAP grants and centers provided updates on their activities through oral presentations, while students supported by SSAP grants and centers also presented their posters this year in five-minute video segments.
The Keynote Address for this year’s symposium was presented by Dr. Mark Anderson, who is the Assistant Deputy Administrator in the Office of Research, Development, Test and Evaluation at DOE/NNSA. Dr. Anderson outlined recent progress in the area of stewardship science, along with scientific and technical challenges that lie ahead, as well as plans for the future, particularly in the development of new experimental and computational capabilities. He emphasized the wide and continuously growing range of opportunities available within the NNSA laboratory complex for scientists, engineers, and other technical professionals.
CDAC was once again well represented at the SSAP Symposium this year. Eleven posters were presented by Center graduate students and represented the Academic Partner groups as well as UIC:
Hannah Bausch (Northwestern) : Origin of the ultra-low velocity zones atop Earth’s core-mantle boundary: Shock-ramp compression of iron-rich (Mg,Fe)O
Brian Blankenau (Illinois/Urbana-Champaign) : First-principles description of the Martensitic phase transformation in Ni2FeGa
Samantha Couper (Utah) : Variant selection across the cubic/monoclinic phase transition in wüstite
Zach Chaney (Tennessee) : Effects on oxidation of zirconium carbide induced by dense electronic excitation
Adam Denchfield (Illinois/Chicago) : Role of zero-point motion in phase transitions of hydrides
John Hirtz (Tennessee) : Solids at extreme conditions: Coupling high pressure with ion beams
Chantelle Kiessner (Utah) : Investigating impacts with high pressure and temperature experiments
Mingda Lyu (Michigan State) : Spin transitions and compressibility of ε-Fe7N3 and γ’-Fe4N: Implications for iron in terrestrial planet cores
Alexander Mark (Illinois/Chicago) : Compression of BSCCO to megabar pressures
Allison Pease (Michigan State) : Deformation of iron nitrides under uniaxial compression to 55 GPa
Charlie Zoller (Illinois/Chicago) : Static pressure-volume equation of state of helium-hydrogen mixtures
Presentations from this year’s symposium will be available on the 2021 SSAP Symposium website. Next year’s SSAP Symposium is planned for February 2022 at the Buffalo Thunder Hotel in Santa Fe, NM.