Brown University has signed a three-year collaboration agreement with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to advance research and teaching, with an emphasis in materials science – an area in which Brown has developed strong programs of its own.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee, is the U.S. Department of Energy’s largest multipurpose science and energy laboratory, with a staff of more than 4,000 and an annual budget exceeding $1 billion.
Established in 1943 as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project, to pioneer a method for producing and separating plutonium, Oak Ridge is an international leader in materials science. It is home to the world’s most powerful electron microscope and has just completed construction of the $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source, which will provide the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world, for scientific research and industrial development.
“Oak Ridge National Laboratory contains scientific expertise and instrumentation that cannot be reproduced by any university in the country,” said Brown Provost Robert J. Zimmer in a news release. “Our students and faculty will directly benefit from new research opportunities and enhanced education. This is an exciting moment for science at Brown.”
For Oak Ridge, the pact “enhances our capabilities for joint faculty appointments, shared research and major new science initiatives,” said Director Jeffrey Wadsworth. In addition, he said, having Brown graduate students at the lab will help Oak Ridge recruit a new generation of scientists.
Brown has strong programs in physics, chemistry and engineering, and is home to the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, which investigates new materials for commercial use and trains young materials scientists.
Brown also supports the Center for Advanced Materials Research, which fosters research and teaching in materials science. The center features several shared facilities, including microelectronics, electron microscopy, and a laboratory for nano- and micromechanics.
Under its pact with Oak Ridge, the two institutions now can exchange faculty and conduct joint research. Oak Ridge staff can teach courses at Brown, while Brown graduate students can spend some of their research time at Oak Ridge.
In an interview, Clyde L. Briant, a former Brown University dean of engineering and now the university’s vice president for research, said several Brown faculty members, including himself, already have relationships with Oak Ridge. The new partnership, he said, is an outgrowth of years of conversations, and it will be grown and nurtured gradually.
Asked what sort of research may be conducted, Briant said it will involve basic science, not day-to-day applications _ but, he added, “I think both institutions hope that all research leads to good things for society, so there will be translational components.”
The collaboration comes as both Oak Ridge and Brown are expanding their research capabilities.
Oak Ridge has added the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, and the National Leadership Computing Facility, where the world’s fastest supercomputer is being built, for example.
Brown has been enlarging its faculty, improving graduate-student support and expanding its laboratory and academic space. It has also launched major new research initiatives.
“This affiliation builds on our efforts over the last five years to raise the university’s research profile,” Briant said. “And the fit with Oak Ridge is perfect. We share research strengths as well as a commitment to cross-disciplinary research.”
