Three scientists from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS.

“ORNL scientists are among the world’s brightest, and Sandra, Jason and Peter are tackling challenges of great importance through creative research and innovation,” said interim ORNL Director Jeff Smith. “I offer my congratulations to them on this recognition of their scientific impact.”

As part of a multi-institutional research project, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory leveraged their computational systems biology expertise and the largest, most diverse set of health data to date to explore the genetic basis of varicose veins. The team identified 139 locations across the human genome tied to risk factors for the disorder that can guide the development of new treatments.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory zoomed in on molecules designed to recover critical materials via liquid-liquid extraction, or LLE — a method used by industry to separate chemically similar elements.

The team previously designed a novel ligand, or collector molecule, to grab select lanthanides from rare-earth mineral solutions.

Critical Materials Institute researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Arizona State University studied the mineral monazite, an important source of rare-earth elements, to enhance methods of recovering critical materials for energy, defense and manufacturing applications.

Rare-earth elements occur together naturally in mineral ores such as monazite but are economically challenging to recover. New approaches to separate the valuable ore from unwanted materials are needed.

A partnership of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley Authority that aims to attract nuclear energy-related firms to Oak Ridge has been recognized with a state and local economic development award from the Federal Laboratory Consortium, or FLC.