Internships fuel research for Puerto Rico engineering students
The NNSA-sponsored Consortium for Integrating Energy Systems in Engineering and Science Education internship program connects engineering students from five Hispanic-serving institutions, including UPRM, with research at Sandia and the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown, West Virginia.
Building a medical-isotope producing reactor
Eden Radioisotopes LLC, a New Mexico company, secured funding this year and located 240 acres of land in the southeastern corner of the state to build a small reactor that exclusively will produce medical isotopes. The concept was developed and licensed by Sandia, and the effort, in partnership with Eden, earned a regional Excellence in Technology Transfer Award from the Federal Laboratory Consortium.
R&D 100
The venerable R&D 100 contest, slightly more than 50 years old, has a new owner, and the competition continues. Competing in an international pool of universities, corporations and government labs, Sandia inventions captured four R&D 100 Awards this year, as well as two environmental and one business award.
Using big data to solve big New Mexico problems
Community Involvement kicked off this fiscal year’s Community Engagement Speakers Series with a talk by NM Appleseed Executive Director and Founder Jennifer Ramo. NM Appleseed is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to ending poverty through systemic solutions to complex issues like hunger, education and homelessness.
Labs director updates New Mexico state legislators on Sandia successes, future
Sandia Labs Director Steve Younger addressed the New Mexico State Legislature’s interim Science, Technology and Telecommunications Committee last month, highlighting the Labs’ accomplishments and commitment to the state.
Exceptional service in the national interest
Two dates are well known to Sandians: the day President Harry Truman wrote a letter calling for “exceptional service in the national interest” and the day Sandia (previously Z Division) separated from its parent, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and became the entity we know it as today.
AI center to combine hardware, software for practical gains
Sandia and Pacific Northwest national laboratories and the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta are launching a research center that combines hardware and software design and development to improve artificial intelligence technologies that will ultimately benefit the public.
Advanced microscopy reveals unusual DNA structure
An advanced imaging technique reveals new structural details of S-DNA, ladder-like DNA that forms when the molecule experiences extreme tension. This work conducted at Sandia and Vrije University in the Netherlands provides the first experimental evidence that S-DNA contains highly tilted base pairs.
Security in a heartbeat
Sandia is collaborating with a New Mexico small business to test and develop a biometric security system based on the human heartbeat. Sandia signed an agreement with Albuquerque-based Aquila Inc. to develop and test a wearable prototype that can stream in real time an identifying signature based on the electrical activity of a person’s heart.
Engineering success through predicting failure
Around the world, materials scientists and engineers are trying different ways to predict fractures in ductile metals, but it’s not clear which approach is most accurate. To compare the different methods, Sandia researchers have presented three voluntary challenges to their colleagues: Given the same basic information about the shape, composition and loading of a metal part, could they predict how it would eventually fracture?