Webster lists on the A&M website as a professor https://engineering.tamu.edu/nuclear/profiles/webster-robert.html
Tri-Valley Cares needs to be on this if they aren't already. We need to make sure that NNSA and LLNL does not make good on promises to pursue such stupid ideas as doing Plutonium experiments on NIF. The stupidity arises from the fact that a huge population is placed at risk in the short and long term. Why do this kind of experiment in a heavily populated area? Only a moron would push that kind of imbecile area. Do it somewhere else in the god forsaken hills of Los Alamos. Why should the communities in the Bay Area be subjected to such increased risk just because the lab's NIF has failed twice and is trying the Hail Mary pass of doing an SNM experiment just to justify their existence? Those Laser EoS techniques and the people analyzing the raw data are all just BAD anyways. You know what comes next after they do the experiment. They'll figure out that they need larger samples. More risk for the local population. Stop this imbecilic pursuit. They wan...
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No, it has to be John Sarrao, if not Tony Taylor. It is the clash of the TITANS, release the Kraken! Reeeeeee!
June 29, 2018 at 10:33 PM
If True, that is interesting news for the accelerator types at LANL. Mason headed up the development of SNS at Oak Ridge as his first job there. LANL accelerator engineers collaborated strongly on that project. Interesting times on the Hill.
July 3, 2018 at 9:58 AM
Uh, the same way the President can credibly authorize a military attack on almost anyone without any military experience? It's about authority, not experience. It counts who you surround yourself with.
July 2, 2018 at 6:12 PM"
You have to go through some very bizarre psychology convolutions to get to this point. Perhaps you have to see it this way, as it is the only way you can keep your delusion going that UC was the bad guy when it comes to your personal situation. Pretty messed up. Don't you think it is time to let it go?
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (Feb. 24, 2017) – Dr. Thom Mason will step down as director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory effective July 1, 2017, exactly 10 years after becoming director of the nation’s largest science and energy laboratory.
Mason will take on a new role as Senior Vice President for Laboratory Operations at Battelle in Columbus, Ohio. Battelle, in partnership with the University of Tennessee, has managed and operated ORNL for the U.S. Department of Energy since April 2000.
“Thom has been an exemplary scientific leader and we're fortunate that he will continue to be engaged with Oak Ridge National Laboratory as he uses his experience and expertise to benefit DOE, Battelle, and other labs where Battelle has a management role,” said Joe DiPietro, chairman of the UT-Battelle board of governors. Battelle has a substantial management role at six DOE labs and one lab for the Department of Homeland Security.
Mason is an experimental condensed matter physicist by training and came to ORNL in 1998 to work on the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), a facility that was under construction to serve scientists worldwide. He soon assumed responsibility for completion of the $1.4 billion project.
SNS and its sister neutron facility, the High Flux Isotope Reactor, solidified ORNL’s role as the leading source of neutrons for scientific research in the U.S. and recently welcomed their 20,000th scientific user.
Mason’s decade as lab director was marked by a number of other milestones, including:
- Two supercomputers ranked as the most powerful in the world, bringing the power of high performance computing to a wide range of science and engineering problems;
- Leadership of ambitious, multi-institutional research organizations such as the BioEnergy Science Center and Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors;
- Establishment of ORNL as a center for advanced manufacturing, and creation of game-changing technologies in support of clean energy and industry;
- Continued revitalization of laboratory infrastructure;
- Support of national priorities in nuclear science and energy, in fission, fusion, isotope production, and nuclear security.
At Battelle, Mason will work with Executive Vice President of Global Laboratory Operations Ron Townsend by participating in governance at each Battelle-managed lab, engaging key sponsors, contributing to capture management, and leading strategic planning for lab operations that integrate with Battelle’s overall strategic plan.
That being said, I'd be somewhat surprised if Battelle put him forward as Director. There are skeletons in the SNS closet just like there are skeletons in the NIF and DAHRT closet. And Mason has little experience with or relationship with the major components of NNSA and DoD. I think Thom Mason is in a holding pattern to succeed Ron Townsend when Jeff Wadsworth retires and Ron moves up.
I think the smart money bet for Director would be Vajid Majidi.
July 5, 2018 at 7:10 AM
Except that Savannah River already snapped him up earlier this year.
July 6, 2018 at 5:37 PM
A variant I heard is that Thom Mason will be the CEO and that a LANL person would be the lab Director? Seems a bid odd but who knows . Mason should be good, at least he will not nuke Canada ;)
This would also mean the protest period is over and no one protested.