Sandia National Labs Georgia Tech Collaboration Report 2021-2022

ACADEMIC PROGRAMS SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES

2021-2022

REPORT COLLABORATION

GEORG I A TECH ED I T I ON

Establishing strategic partnerships to solve science and technology problems of national importance

Academic Programs at Sandia is a comprehensive organization that cultivates strategic and enduring institutional relationships, develops research collaborations and grows impacts, stimulates workforce development, and fuels the talent pipeline all in an effort to solve science and technology problems of national importance.

Thank you TO ALL OF OUR SUPN PARTNERS

Georgia Tech

The Georgia Institute of Technology

Purdue

Purdue University

Texas A&M

The Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University

UC Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley

Illinois

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

UNM

The University of New Mexico

UT Austin

The University of Texas at Austin

National/Regional Partners, including our: Securing Top Academic Research & Talent with

START HBCU

Historically Black Colleges and Universities

MSI

Minority Serving Institutions

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A B O U T S U P N

Buliding an innovation pipeline though partnerships The Value of Sandia’s Academic Programs & University Partnerships Network

University partnerships play an essential role in sustaining Sandia’s vitality as a national laboratory, and the Sandia University Partnerships Network (SUPN), an element of Sandia’s Academic Programs, facilitates recruiting and research & development collaborations with dozens of universities annually. The Academic Programs umbrella encompasses SUPN, the Faculty Loan Program for Joint Appointments, and the Postdoctoral Research Program Office. The largest branch of Academic Programs is SUPN, which establishes and cultivates strategic academic partnerships that are mutually beneficial. The focused set of schools in the university partnerships network

have expertise complementary to that of Sandia and can help amplify access to a diverse and innovative talent pipeline. In concert, Sandia can accelerate technology transfer via partnerships, increase the potential for partnership impact, provide joint funding to seed strategic research, and enable opportunities for advisory board memberships, faculty sabbaticals, and the exchange of staff, faculty, students, and postdoctoral appointees. In addition to engagement with university leadership and faculty, SUPN strives to establish and sustain strategic research partnerships by establishing and supporting federally sponsored collaborations and multi-institutional consortiums

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The 2021-2022 Collaboration Report

in science and technology priorities such as autonomy, advanced computing, hypersonics, quantum information science, and data science. This past year, Basil Hassan, Sandia’s Deputy Chief Research Officer, visited senior-level staff at numerous partner universities. These campus visits allowed for discussions of ongoing technical work, upcoming priorities, and potential recruiting/internship opportunities. In short, the visits really celebrate all that university partnerships has accomplished in the past and what can be accomplished in the future.

The 2021-2022 Collaboration Report is a compilation of accomplishments in 2021 and 2022 from across Sandia’s Academic Programs. To learn more, visit: www.sandia.gov /academic-programs .

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T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

About SUPN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Partnerships Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Overarching Accomplishments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Georgia Tech Accomplishments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Faculty Loan Program for Joint Appointments . . . . . . . . 30 Postdoctoral Research Program Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Hyperlink Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

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P A R T N E R S H I P S M A P

Georgia Institute of Technology Purdue University Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University University of California, Berkley

Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University Arizona State University Carnegie Melon University Cornell University Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology New Mexico State University

Norfolk State University North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University North Carolina State University Prairie View Agricultural and Mechanical University Stanford University University of California, Davis University of California, Los Angeles

University of Colorado at Boulder University of Florida University of Michigan University of Texas at El Paso University of Washington University of Wisconsin, Madison

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign University of New Mexico University of Texas at Austin

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TOUCH POINTS NETWORK

SANDIA LABS Sandia collaborates with any and all accredited universities, but the ones featured on this map are Sandia’s corporately supported partners.

ALLIANCE PARTNERS Alliance Partners are institutional partners that have multiple crossover areas for collaboration and innovative pipeline and staffing mechanisms.

NATIONAL/REGIONAL PARTNERS National/Regional Partners are college or research center partners with one or more areas for collaboration and opportunities for talent pipeline development. START HBCU PARTNERS START HBCU Partners are strategic partners that provide Sandia with expertise in complementary fields, joint research opportunities, and a mechanism for increasing diversity in Sandia’s talent pipeline.

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Universities are doing cutting edge research that’s important to our missions – taking things from lower-technology readiness levels on to demonstrations Typically, the national labs are in that mode of demonstrating and then passing it off to industry So, universities play a very important role in furthering research that can end up being vital to national security .

James S. Peery Sandia National Laboratories Director

Excerpt from Texas A&M University Interview

O V E R A R C H I N G A C C O M P L I S H M E N T S

SANDIA LABS ALBUQUERQUE, NM

Growing research and talent through partnerships.. . . . . 12 UT Austin and Purdue LDRD collaborations lead to NASA awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Poster sessions highlight student contributions to Sandia projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Summer interns learn about the small world at CINT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 TracerFIRE program trains top university talent . . . . . . 18 Senior design bonanza highlights exceptional student designs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

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Growing research and talent through partnerships In 2021, the Sandia University Partnerships Network (SUPN) was created. The structure of SUPN includes two categories: Alliance Partners and National/Regional Partners. The goal of the new structure is to establish and cultivate enduring strategic and mutually beneficial relationships with a focused set of schools. The structure provides Sandia with numerous avenues for accomplishing mission and talent pipeline objectives. Under the new university partnerships network, a balanced selection of universities was chosen based on academic standing, strategic research directions, pipeline diversity, ability to attract and retain alumni, and geographic diversity. This approach allows Sandia to partner broadly with universities while investing corporate resources at a level commensurate with the expected partnership impact. The SUPN Alliance Partners category includes schools previously known as Academic Alliance schools (including the Georgia Institute of Technology, Purdue University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of New Mexico, and The University of Texas at Austin). Joining these five as new SUPN Alliance Partners are Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University, and the University of California, Berkeley. The SUPN National/Regional Partners category includes 20 schools across the country representing various areas of expertise complementary to that of Sandia. Half of these academic partners are minority-serving institutions, and five of them are part of Sandia’s Securing Top Academic Research Talent (START) at Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU) Program. Each school in the National/Regional Partnership helps Sandia execute top research and facilitate diversity goals. “Sandia is excited by the opportunity to partner with these distinguished institutions. Our nation will continue to reap the rewards of the strong academic collaborations far into the future,” said Deputy Chief Research Officer Basil Hassan.

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“Sandia is excited by the opportunity to partner with these distinguished institutions. Our nation will continue to reap the rewards of the strong academic collaborations far into the future.”

Sandia’s Academic Programs Senior Manager Diane Peebles said, “The value we place on our academic partnerships is readily apparent in our funding. In Fiscal Year 2021, Sandia engaged in research collaborations with a total of 148 universities and

invested $58M into contracts with them. Our academic partnerships make a significant impact in our Research & Development (R&D) projects and in our talent pipeline efforts.”

Sandia University Partnership Network

Alliance Partners • Institutional partnership • Muliple areas of collaboration • Research big problems that neither

National/Regional Partners • College or research center partnership • One or more areas of collaboration • Collaborative, mutually beneficial research • Modest Sandia presence on campus • Opportunities for talent pipeline development

institution could fully accomplsh by itself • Significant and active Sandia presence on campus • Innovative pipeline and staffing mechanisms

The SUPN universities were selected based on academic standing, strategic research focus, geographic and student diversity, and attraction/retention data.

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UT Austin and Purdue LDRD collaborations lead to NASA awards

Research initiated at UT Austin, Purdue, and Sandia led to three NASA University Leadership Initiative (ULI) awards totaling $14.8M. The teams, chosen by NASA, will explore innovations in areas of aeronautical research. The three projects focus on various aspects of autonomous research. Emission & Absorption Spectroscopy Sensors for Hypersonic Flight Control This 3-year, $3.5M ULI award to Purdue resulted from their collaboration on Sandia’s A4H LDRD Mission Campaign. The project will focus on the development of novel in-flight and ground measurement techniques for hypersonic flight. The optical and laser sensor capabilities developed through the A4H project will be used to examine the surfaces and flow of hypersonic vehicles.

Autonomous Aerial Cargo Operations at Scale This 4-year, $8M ULI award to UT Austin came about through three UT Austin PhD students working on Sandia’s Autonomous Detection and Assessment with Moving Sensors (ADAMS) Laboratory Directed Research & Development (LDRD) project. Sandia will continue to collaborate on this work and serve on the Technology Recipients Board for the ULI project. FAST: Full Airframe Sensing Technology for Hypersonic Aerodynamics Measurements This 3-year, $3.3M ULI award performed at UT Austin will enable high-fidelity aerothermal simulations of hypersonic vehicles. Work done on Sandia’s Autonomy for Hypersonics (A4H) LDRD Mission Campaign led UT to focus on creating a new paradigm in sensing for hypersonic vehicles that could also be applied to lower-speed craft. Sandia will collaborate on this work by providing expertise in hypersonic vehicle air flow simulations.

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Students who worked on LDRD projects supported through university partnerships supplemental funding in 2021 were invited to present their research at several virtual poster sessions hosted for SUPN Alliance Partners last year. This talent pipeline-focused activity allowed students to showcase their work in a larger forum for their schools and demonstrate their contributions to Sandia research. Andre Claudet, Sandia’s campus partnership manager (CPM) for Georgia Tech, said, “This event has a twofold benefit. It highlights the amazing student work enabled through contributions by our Alliance Partners while also conveying the breadth of problems being addressed by Sandia’s LDRD projects.” Nadine Miner, Sandia’s CPM for UT Austin, added, “By hosting this type of event, we’re also opening up the possibility for new partnerships beyond the initial projects the students are presenting on. It enables attendees to learn about projects and see opportunities for tangential collaborations.” Each student had five to 15 minutes to present their work with a moderator helping to feed them any questions coming through the chat. Students were also invited to sign up for Sandia’s Yello Talent Community list, allowing them to get more information on Sandia career opportunities and be be alerted to any Sandia-hosted events at their schools. Academic Programs Senior Manager Diane Peebles is a strong supporter of these talent pipeline events. She said, “These sessions make student researchers the stars. The supplemental LDRD funding may facilitate the collaboration, but their hard work and insight is an essential ingredient to many projects. We want to further student careers while furthering Sandia missions. ” Poster sessions highlight student contributions to Sandia projects

CONTRIBUTOR Spotlight

Brent Austgen is a PhD student in the Operations Research and Industrial Engineering program at UT Austin who presented last April on his contributions to a power grid resilience LDRD project. “The LDRD project blossomed first into a summer internship directly related to my research and now a year-round internship that is more loosely related under the umbrella of grid planning and resilience.”

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What would it be like as an undergraduate or graduate student to work alongside some of the world’s leading experts in nanoscience? Approximately a dozen interns from across partner universities can answer that question after participating in the 2021 Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT) Summer Research Program. In this collaborative, multidisciplinary environment, interns at the Department of Energy funded facility received hands-on experience for eight weeks in areas that explore the path from scientific discovery to the integration of nanostructures into the micro- and macro-worlds. CINT is co-located with Sandia, so students who participate get a sense of just how large Sandia’s campus is and understand the dynamics of working at a national lab that’s a hub of innovation for the nation. Nicole Person, who was a Materials Science & Engineering undergraduate student from Texas A&M University at the time of her internship, said she gained valuable experience from participating in the 2021 program. “I wasn’t completing random technical tasks with no bigger meaning; I was able to sit down with internal and external mentors, understand the specific problem, and then be a part of the discussion on how to best solve the problem. ” During her internship, Nicole said she felt like a “real” scientist in the sense that she was treated and trained like a valuable member of the team and not just some college kid brought on for the summer. She noted, “The lab and public speaking experiences I gained were also extremely helpful for my college career, and I find myself less nervous to do certain tasks because I’ve already done something similar at CINT.” Summer interns learn about the small world at CINT

Electrical engineering students Alyssa Bradshaw, Adia Radecka, and Javi Cardenas conducted experiments at Grainger College of Engineering at Illinois to identify biomaterials that could make effective robotic actuators for implantable medical devices.

Nicole Person conducts experiments for her senior capstone design project.

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Each university participant in 2021 was highlighted at a symposium where they presented their summer research, and the same is true for 2022 interns who were solicited for broad topics including quantum, nanophotonics, optical nanomaterials, and nanomechanics research. Two undergraduate engineering students at Grainger College of Engineering at Illinois, Alyssa Bradshaw and Adia Radecka, received summer internship positions at CINT in 2021 as a part of a collaborative research project between Illinois and Sandia. The students

presented at the IEEE Robosoft Conference on their work developing robotic actuators, robotic actuators, and how they expanded on their research at Sandia through the use of new tools for characterization and fabrication. “Neither one of us realized that so much good can come out of presenting at conferences,” said Radecka on the opportunity to develop their electrical engineering device fabrication skills at CINT.

The CINT summer research program interns from 2021 pause outside of the CINT facility.

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Students from across the country benefit from Sandia’s TracerFIRE cyber training TracerFIRE program trains top university talent There isn’t a company or facility across the nation that doesn’t need cybersecurity professionals and systems, and the same is true for the national laboratories. That’s one reason why the TracerFIRE training program takes Sandia experts from Cyber Security Technologies, Cyber Assurance, Cyber Enterprise Security, and Cyber Security Initiatives outside of the laboratory to teach students the basics of computer science and cybersecurity. In 2021 and 2022, Sandia led numerous high-energy, hands-on TracerFIRE events throughout the country with several hosted by SUPN Alliance or National/ Regional Partners. The TracerFIRE team is increasing its START HBCU outreach programs to further develop a diverse STEM-related pipeline, mainly in cybersecurity, to transition undergraduates to masters programs and bring knowledgeable interns/staff to multiple critical areas at Sandia. In 2021, the TracerFIRE team, in collaboration with START HBCU, ran three cybersecurity workshops. In February, the first two-and-a-half-day cybersecurity workshop was held for 40+ students at Prairie View A&M University, Texas A&M, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, University of Texas (UT) Dallas, UT Austin, and The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). This workshop used TracerFIRE 10 to simulate state government infrastructure. In March, a workshop was held for North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T), Highpoint University, University of North Carolina (UNC)- Wilmington, UNC-Greensboro, and Eastern Carolina students. Over 25 students across all schools participated. In April, NC A&T hosted an event attended by an event attended by students from NC A&T and UTEP.

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The first-place team of four, (facing camera) Sasha Thomas and Waleed Nasr, and (backs to camera) Ethan Emmons and Christie Gorka, compete in Sandia National Labs’ TracerFIRE competition at Purdue on March 26-27.

Another TracerFIRE event in August 2021 allowed engineering and computer science undergraduate students from New Mexico State University, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, UNM, and Eastern New Mexico University to investigate advanced persistent threat style adversaries throughout the simulations. The event gave insight into how to recognize adversarial tactics within the kill chain such as reconnaissance, attack vector, exploitation and exfiltration. In October 2021, more than 50 participants engaged in a TracerFIRE event at Purdue to teach students to investigate multiple advanced persistent threat adversaries in a simulated incident response scenario. Other participating schools included Norfolk, Pacific Northwest, and Illinois. Two teams from Illinois traveled to Purdue for the event, with Illinois Director for Research Don Takahara joining as an observer seeking to bring TracerFIRE to his campus in the future. The annual TracerFIRE challenge at Purdue in March 2022 focused on cyber forensics and security. In partnership with the Purdue Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS), Sandia led the Spring 2022 Symposium, which used TracerFIRE 11 to teach thirty-nine students in a challenge exercise on a voter fraud scenario. Derek Hart

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and Arthur Hernandez, representing Sandia’s Emulytics capabilities, also hosted an in-person two-part Emulytics workshop session highlighting Sandia’s virtualization tools and support for the Scalable Open Laboratory for Cyber Experimentation (SOL4CE) platform. Ethan Emmons from Edina, Minnesota was one of four students on the first-place team. This junior studying cybersecurity and network engineering technology in Purdue’s Polytechnic Institute said, “It gave me a realistic, low-stakes environment to apply the cybersecurity and networking knowledge and skills I have learned in the three years I have been at Purdue.” Kamlesh “Ken” Patel, who manages Sandia’s campus partnership with Purdue and helps host the campus competition, noted, “TracerFIRE is a way for us to expose the next generation of cyber security professionals to research efforts underway at Sandia to solve challenging problems. Students may not know about career opportunities available in defending the nation against cyberattacks. This program allows us to help train top talent while students learn about careers in cybersecurity. It’s a win-win.”

Tracer FIRE is a way for us to expose the next generation of cyber security professionals to research efforts underway at Sandia to solve challenging problems.” “

Students at NC A&T participate in one of the TracerFIRE events in 2021.

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Senior bonanza highlights exceptional student designs

The mechanical engineering Senior Design Bonanza team from UT Austin showcases their project “AM Optical Alignment Structure,” along with two UT Austin students who participated in Sandia’s Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies Summer Research Program in 2021.

Seventy seniors from nine universities participated in Sandia’s annual Senior Design Bonanza throughout the fall of 2021 and spring of 2022. The student design teams were all mentored by Sandia technical staff and challenged to create an additively manufactured system for a space application. The participating universities include the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder), Fort Lewis College, Howard University, Missouri S&T, Morgan State University, Rochester Tech, UT Austin, Illinois, and NC A&T. A total of eight awards were given, and five were won by four SUPN academic partners.

• CU Boulder received an award for best experimental design with modeling and simulation validation and another for the most thorough engineering cost analysis award. • Illinois received an award for exceptional project management and execution . • UT Austin received the exceptional use of optical modeling and simulation award. • NC A&T received an award for best engineering analysis for the overall lens system.

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A L L I A N C E P A R T N E R S H I P

GEORGIA TECH ATLANTA, GA

Gaming for electric power grid resilliency. . . . . . . . . . 24 New discoveries in materials fingerprinting . . . . . . . . 25 Racing toward game-changing hypersonic systems . . . . . 26 Engineering super algae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

K E Y L E A D E R S H I P

S AND I A L ABS Diane Peebles Academic Programs Senior Manager Rob Leland

GEORG I A T ECH Chaouki Abdallah Executive Vice President for Research Krista Walton Associate Dean for Research, College of Enginerring Olof Westerstahl Associate Director Strategic Industry Collaborations, Sandia Research Engagements

Campus Executive Rick McCormick Deputy Campus Executive Andre Claudet Campus Partnership Manager Hannah Stangebye Partnership Development Nicole Streu Technical Recruiting Specialist Scottie-Beth Fleming

Recruiting Lead Angela Meyer Administrative Support

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Gaming for electric power grids sounds like fun, but it’s a serious focus for Sandia and Georgia Tech Gaming for electric power grid resilliency The U.S. energy system is under attack, and we have vulnerabilities as a nation. The seven-year Resilient Energy Systems (RES) Mission Campaign is a $40 million investment at Sandia focused on coordinated foundational research and development. The science and technologies that result from the coordinated work with academic institutions like Georgia Tech, regulatory agencies, industry, and public utilities will lead to an electric grid and energy infrastructure that is more resilient to man-made threats. RES is sponsoring a Vertically Integrated Project s (VIP), “Gaming for Electric Power Grids,” that will allow Sandia to engage students in a way that is aligned both with the topic and timescale of the Mission Campaign. The VIP model provides students with the ability to gain deeper insights into their field of study, learn about real-world applications and practice professional skills, engage with industry, and experience different roles on large, multidisciplinary teams. In April 2022, a visit by Sandia’s RES leadership to the GT campus connected RES to the Vertically Integrated Projects faculty sponsor, Dan Molzahn, and the Artificial Intelligence Institute for Advances in Optimization (AI4Opt) National Science Foundation Center, which RES is joining.

CONTRIBUTOR Spotlight

Georgia Tech’s Dan Molzahn, assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, focuses on developing new optimization

and control algorithms to improve the reliability, resiliency, and efficiency of electric power systems.

Sandia’s Resilient Energy Systems Testbed Facilities provide a demonstrator system to prove out capabilities emerging from the Labs’ R&D portfolio, demonstrate success as an aggregator, platform and resource hub, and facilitate experimentation through partnerships.

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Sandia and Georgia Tech leverage AI to discover resilient materials and manufacturing processes New discoveries in materials fingerprinting

CONTRIBUTOR Spotlight

Brad Boyce, a materials scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, leads the Beyond Fingerprinting Grand Challenge at Sandia, and is collaborating with Remi Dingreville and Georgia Tech on related LDRD projects. Boyce was elected president of The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society on March 3, 2022.

A three-year LDRD Grand Challenge at Sandia called “Beyond Fingerprinting” is centered on discovering new resilient materials and manufacturing processes by taking an AI-guided approach that integrates human-subject-matter expertise with algorithms that help interpret complex data streams. Such algorithms, trained on high throughput experiments and simulations, serve as surrogate models that can efficiently detect key “fingerprints” in materials data, predict material performance, and guide effective adaptations for almost every hardware component relevant to DOE and NNSA national security missions. This AI-guided approach acts as a force multiplier for subject matter expert technical knowledge/ experience and should enable agile materials processing and accelerate digital engineering... Sandia principal investigators Brad Boyce and Remi Dingreville, a Sandia staff member who also has an adjunct faculty appointment at GT, who specialize in the mechanics of materials, hypothesize that in-process diagnostics and high-throughput materials characterization contain complex “fingerprints” that can be exploited to accelerate the discovery of robust materials and their manufacturing processes. The goal of this collaboration with GT is to increase materials reliability through a fully digital workflow that integrates process awareness. This AI-guided approach, says Boyce, acts as a force multiplier for subject matter expert technical knowledge/experience and should enable agile materials processing and accelerate digital engineering in support of NNSA’s nuclear security mission.

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Racing toward game-changing hypersonic systems

Georgia Tech and the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) are a part of the University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics (UCAH), an essential component for advancing modern hypersonic flight systems in support of national security. The UCAH network of universities collaborate with Sandia and other national laboratories, federally funded research centers, existing university affiliated research centers, plus government and industry to advance hypersonics in the U.S. Hypersonics systems are game-changing for national security, providing unprecedented speed and maneuverability. They operate at more than five times the speed of sound and are hard to intercept as they can alter course after takeoff. Hypersonic vehicles are capable of traveling at over a mile per second, and those speeds can heat up

vehicle surface temperatures to 2,200 degrees Celsius causing great engineering challenges for hypersonics materials and systems. The expertise of Georgia Tech and GTRI in advanced, high-temperature materials science and aerospace and mechanical engineering research plays a significant role in the UCAH hypersonics grants, which total $6M over the next three years. One of the awards will leverage Sandia’s expertise in hypersonics. Ani Mazumdar, assistant professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, is serving as a co-PI with Jonathan Rogers, associate professor of avionics integration in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering. Kyle Williams, co-PI from Sandia, is from the Autonomous Sensing and Controls organization. The team, with the help of researchers from Texas A&M, will build on the previous work of Katya Casper’s Autonomy for Hypersonics LDRD project (in partnership with Georgia Tech) by designing and experimentally validating new multimodal control systems. Hypersonic vehicles have little margin against heating or other aerodynamic loads since they fly on the border of where they are structurally sound so the control systems must be tailored specifically to those challenges. Rogers said, “It’s hard to design margin into the system when we don’t know a lot about what the system will experience.” To combat that uncertainty, the research team will design trajectory models so that vehicle operators can plan the path the vehicle will take in simulations.

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CONTRIBUTOR Spotlight

Katya Casper is well known for her innovative techniques measuring the effects of pressure on hypersonic vehicles using the wind tunnels at Sandia. Her breakthrough in characterizing hypersonic turbulent spots and her work with novel fluctuating pressure instrumentation led to her Lawrence Sperry Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She and Georgia Tech are currently collaborating on other LDRD hypersonic projects.

“ Our UCAH project combines expertise in control and estimation theory from Georgia Tech and Texas A&M with the immense hypersonics experience at Sandia ,” says Mazumdar. “The Sandia hypersonic wind tunnel will play a critical role in this project as it enables our team to experimentally quantify, validate, and improve the performance of our control methods.” This joint effort is addressing problems that directly impact the U.S. hypersonics enterprise.

Over 200 people attended panels focused on “leap ahead” technologies at the UCAH Spring Forum in March 2022.

Sandia’s Dennis Helmich, the director of Integrated Military Systems Development, provided the keynote

address. Dr. Gillian Bussey, Joint Hypersonic Transition Office director, said that the UCAH focus is to leap far ahead where the capabilities of the U.S. will be unmatched and not easily imitated. The mission of the UCAH focuses on delivering time-sensitive applied research and prototype solutions to the Department of Defense in the following areas: Materials, Structures and Thermal Protection Systems Guidance, Navigation and Control Air-breathing Propulsion

Hypersonic Environments and Phenomenology Applied Aerodynamics and Hypersonic Systems Lethality and Energetics

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Sandia researchers operate the raceways growing a consortium of cyanobacteria. The demand for clean, domestically produced, renewable energy has resulted in a lot of research on algae, which is a desirable biofuel source. Tour Sandia’s Algae Raceway .

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Engineering super algae Partnership enables engineering the future of renewable biofuels/bioproducts through phycoviruses

CONTRIBUTOR Spotlight

Todd Lane has conducted 30 years of research in microbiology and the molecular biology and biochemistry of microalgae. Lane’s recent research focuses on the characterization, detection and prevention of crashes in algal cultivation systems. This work includes the development of methods for pond-side detection of biocontaminants and the manipulation of pond ecology to inhibit grazers and prevent crashes.

Domestic production of next generation renewable biofuels and bioproducts is key to enhancing U.S. energy security. One LDRD team working in this field realized they could facilitate a new system capable of introducing entire metabolic pathways into algae by genetically engineering a new class of viral vectors based on the ubiquitous class of viruses that naturally infect algae. The genetically tractable algal species Tetraselmis striata, known to be easily infected with an isolated virus, is emerging as a potential biotechnology strain and was selected as the project’s algal/viral model system. A novel DNA virus, TsV-N1, that infects T. striata has been isolated with a much smaller genome (30 kB) than most algal viruses, so the team engineered a specialized transducing virus from the TsV-N1 viral chassis to transfer specific, defined DNA fragments with the virus to the host upon infection. Georgia Tech, one of Sandia’s academic partners, was instrumental in identifying a potential chemical compound that can protect algae from deleterious species and prevent pond crashes. These compounds represent several “lead targets” for the engineering of resistance into microalgal production strains through the types of mechanisms that Sandia is developing. Progress made in this three-year project already represents a significant advance in the ability to rapidly create wholescale genetic changes in microalgae—an important first step toward production of critical renewable biofuels.

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FACULTY LOAN PROGRAM FOR JOINT APPOINTMENTS

About the Faculty Loan Program for Joint Appointments. . . . . . . . . . 31 Strengthening relationships with university partners through joint appointments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Sandia’s first outbound Faculty Loan joint appointee . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Sandia’s first inbound Faculty Loan joint appointee . . . . . . . . . . . 35

K E Y L E A D E R S H I P

S AND I A L ABS Diane Peebles Academic Programs Senior Manager Tracie Durbin Faculty Loan Program Lead Joshua Martinez Faculty Loan Partnership Development Sarah Dubroff Faculty Loan Program Administration

About the Faculty Loan Program for Joint Appointments

Sandia staff and university faculty at six partner universities can now take advantage of joint appointment opportunities thanks to master Faculty Loan agreements signed in 2021 and 2022. The university partners in the program include the University of New Mexico, University of Texas at Austin, New Mexico State University, Purdue University, Auburn University, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and the University of Arizona. Partnerships across Sandia were critical to establishing the program, which will deepen Sandia’s strategic relationships and increase the diversity of Sandians partnering with universities.

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Strengthening relationships with university partners through joint appointments

The Faculty Loan Program for Joint Appointments is all about strengthening relationships with university partners. The program allows Sandia scientists and engineers and professors and researchers from academia to leverage the capabilities of the other institution. It also enhances project work, supports the talent pipeline for Sandia, and offers insight into collaborative opportunities. Sandia staff who are joint appointees to partner universities (outbound appointees) are formally approved to engage on company time with academic institutions for educational or collaborative activities. Benefits to participating Sandia staff include: • Access to university resources including shared equipment, facilities, and internal funds • Ability to lead/participate on projects and proposals as university faculty members with a “principal investigator” status • Ability to mentor/supervise graduate students as a member of the Graduate Faculty • Remaining a full employee of Sandia with all associated benefits while enabling university collaborations • Enhancing workforce development, recruitment, and retention • Knowledge of university strategic direction/ objectives and an understanding of further ways to effectively partner together Benefits to Sandia include:

University faculty who are joint appointees to Sandia (inbound appointees) remain employees of their home institution and are loaned to Sandia for a maximum of half time. Benefits to participating faculty include: • Access to Sandia resources (including experimental and computational capabilities), leveraging staff expertise, and the ability to partner with Sandia staff members to compete for internal Laboratory Directed Research & Development (LDRD) project funding. • Ability to participate in “DOE Lab-only” projects and proposal opportunities • Remain a full faculty member of their university with all associated benefits while enabling Sandia collaborations Benefits to participating universities include: • Knowledge of DOE and Sandia strategic direction/objectives and an understanding of further ways to effectively partner together • Advancing national security capabilities and technology transfer

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2021-2022 Collaboration Report

Sandia’s first outbound Faculty Loan joint appointee

Jonathan Pegues, a researcher in Sandia’s Coatings & Additive Manufacturing department, was approved to be the first formally approved Sandia outbound Faculty Loan joint appointee. Pegues’ joint appointment is an agreement between Sandia and Auburn University’s (AU) National Center for Additive Manufacturing Excellence (NCAME). The NCAME is a collaborative effort among AU, NASA, ASTM International and EWI that works to close the standardization and workforce development gaps in additive manufacturing through effective coordination of industry, government, academia, non-profit organizations, and ASTM committees. Pegues is not new to the standards arena. He currently serves as Secretary for the ASTM sub-committee on Additive Manufacturing Applications. In 2020, he collaborated with ASTM International’s additive manufacturing technologies committee to create a proposed standard to rapidly assess the quality of laser beam powder bed fusion (LB-PBF) processes. The proposed standard aims to use off-the-shelf tools to quickly generate qualitative data related to dimensional accuracy and material strength, both of which serve as build health indicators of the machine and the parts. Pegues said the standard he worked on previously for the production of LB-PBF parts for structural applications could potentially be extended to other additive manufacturing techniques. He added, “In this joint appointment position, I’m looking forward to working closely with graduate students to address safety and reliability concerns for fatigue critical additive manufactured parts.”

Jonathan Pegues is Sandia’s first formal outbound Faculty Loan Program joint appointee. He will be working with the National Center for Additive Manufacturing Excellence.

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Sandia’s first inbound Faculty Loan joint appointee Sandia’s first inbound Faculty Loan joint appointee, Matt Eichenfield started his career at Sandia in 2011 as a Harry S. Truman Postdoctoral Fellow in National Security Science & Engineering. He then transitioned to a staff member in 2014 and was appointed to the level of Distinguished Staff in 2020. Matt is joining University of Arizona (UA) as an Associate Professor and the inaugural SPIE (the International Society for Optics and Photonics) Endowed Chair in Optical Sciences for UA in August 2022 and will hold an inbound joint appointment with Sandia. Matt will build alignment between Sandia and UA in quantum information, photonic, radio frequency communications, and sensing technologies. While at Sandia, Eichenfield has been an essential part of numerous acclaimed projects. He was tapped to lead a DOE-funded effort at Sandia in 2019 to work on quantum transduction and buffering between microwave quantum information systems and “flying optical photons in fibers,” collaborated with a team that patented a hybrid semiconductor-piezoacoustic radiofrequency device in 2020, and helped to create the world’s smallest and best acoustic amplifier in 2021.

Matt Eichenfield will join University of Arizona as an Associate Professor and the SPIE Endowed Chair in Optical Sciences in August 2022 and will hold an Inbound Joint Appointment with Sandia.

In 2021, Matt Eichenfield and Lisa Hackett were part of the Sandia team that created the world’s smallest and best acoustic amplifier. It is 10 times more effective than earlier versions, and the design and research hold promise for smaller wireless technology.

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2021-2022 Collaboration Report

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH PROGRAM OFF I CE

About the Postdoctoral Research Program Office . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Inaugural Bay Area Postdoc Research SLAM is a slam dunk. . . . . . . . . . . . 38 2022 Distinguished Hruby and Truman Fellows join Sandia . . . . . . . . 40

K E Y L E A D E R S H I P

S AND I A L ABS Diane Peebles Academic Programs Senior Manager Tracie Durbin Postdoctoral Research Program Lead Joshua Martinez Postdoctoral Research Program Partnership Development Sarah Dubroff Postdoctoral Research Program Administration

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About the Postdoctoral Research Program Office

The Postdoctoral Research Program Office was inaugurated at Sandia in November 2020 with the purposes of nurturing the next generation of researchers in science and engineering, infusing Sandia’s research enterprise with new ideas and energy from early career researchers, and preparing postdocs for their next career step. Since launching, the Postdoctoral Research Program Office has formalized processes around Foundation Fellowships, managed the Distinguished Fellowships process, and created individualized development plans for Standard Postdoctoral Appointments. The new Program Office has increased postdoc visibility through regional competitions, helped to advance postdoc professional skills, and fostered more engagement through the postdoctoral researchers community at Sandia. Postdoctoral Research Program Office lead Tracie Durbin said, “If a postdoctoral scholar has a successful experience at Sandia, there are three likely outcomes. One, they become fully engaged staff members if they hire on at Sandia; two, they potentially become research partners if they work outside the Labs, or three, they act as ambassadors when discussing their experience with others. No matter the result, it’s a win-win for everyone involved.” A postdoctoral scholar (“postdoc”) is an individual holding a doctoral degree who is engaged in a temporary period of mentored research and/or scholarly training for the purpose of acquiring the professional skills needed to pursue a career path of their choosing. (National Postdoc Association)

Postdoctoral researcher Martha Gross, who is now working on a new kind of molten sodium battery for grid-scale energy storage, was a first place winner during the 2019 Postdoctoral Technical Showcase. 2022 Technical Showcase winners from Sandia-CA and Sandia-NM will compete in the upcoming Bay Area Research SLAM or the Rio Grande Research SLAM.

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2021-2022 Collaboration Report

Inaugural Bay Area Postdoc Research SLAM is a slam dunk Twelve postdoctoral researchers from national labs took the virtual stage on October 28, 2021 to compete in the inaugural Bay Area Research SLAM. Sandia’s three participants, Nicole Jackson, Josh Rackers, and Jennifer Loe, all agreed that the biggest challenges to the competition were the use of one static background slide, a strict 3-minute time limit, and no props to accentuate key points.

“We’re adding our mixed-precision refinement solver to Sandia’s widely used Trilinos library for use by scientists everywhere.”

Josh Rackers from the Computational Multiscale department focused on how he and his team trained a neural network to make accurate predictions on larger sets of water molecules

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano served as master of ceremonies for the Bay Area Research SLAM competition, which was judged by executives from Sandia, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

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using a much smaller fragment through an approach fusing physics and artificial intelligence. “Electron density is key,” he said. “If we can learn the electron density for water, we might be able to do it for whatever molecule causes the next pandemic.” Jackson, who works in energy water systems integration, spoke on her team’s multilab effort to correlate extreme weather impact data gathered from the 800 sites in Sandia’s Photovoltaic Operations and Maintenance Database. “This presents a new way of fusing together a lot of disparate datasets and could provide us with the ability to improve resiliency to extreme weather and gain energy output at solar energy sites,” she said. Loe presented on the successful results her Scalable Algorithms team received when running 32-bit precision computer simulations while utilizing multiprecision strategies on their GMRES linear solver to take smaller, more frequent steps to refine the high accuracy solution that was needed. “We’re adding our mixed-precision refinement solver to Sandia’s widely used Trilinos library for use by scientists everywhere,” Loe commented.

Top-to-bottom: Sandia postdoctoral researchers

Nicole Jackson , Jennifer Loe , and Josh Rackers presented at the first inaugural Bay Area Research SLAM.

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2021-2022 Collaboration Report

2022 Distinguished Hruby and Truman Fellows join Sandia

The two Jill Hruby and two Harry S. Truman Distinguished Postdoctoral Researchers started their independent research at Sandia in October 2021. The Hruby Fellows are to “develop advanced technologies to ensure global peace,” and the Truman Fellows are to perform “exceptional service in the national interest.” Sommer Johansen , a 2022 Hruby Fellow, received her doctorate in physical chemistry from the University of California, Davis, and aims to improve models that demonstrate how burning bio-derived fuels affect the Earth’s planetary ecology and severe forest fires caused by climate change during her Hruby fellowship. Johansen is working with the gas-phase chemical physics department, studying gas-phase nitrogen chemistry at Sandia’s Livermore site under the mentorship of Lenny Sheps and Judit Zádor. “ UC Davis is close to Livermore, and the Combustion Research Facility there was always in the back of my mind. I wanted to go there, use the best equipment in the world and work with some our field’s smartest people. ” Alex Downs , a 2022 Hruby Fellow, completed her doctorate at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and wants to create wearable biosensors for long duration, real-time molecular measurements of health markers that would be an ongoing measurement of a person’s well-being. When she saw the Hruby posting on LinkedIn, she thought, “ There’s a huge opportunity here for freedom to explore my research interests. I can bring my expertise in electrochemistry and device fabrication and develop new skills working with microneedles and possibly other sensing platforms. ” Downs’ mentor, Ronen Polsky, is an internationally recognized expert in wearable microneedle sensors, and she is working with Sandia’s biological and chemical sensors team.

Hruby Fellow Sommer Johansen hopes to help improve comprehensive

chemical kinetics models of the after-effects on Earth’s planetary ecology of burning bio-derived fuels and the increasingly severe forest fires caused by climate change.

Hruby Fellow Alex Downs plans to create wearable biosensors that gather real-time molecular measurements. She plans to make the sensors longer lasting by improved understanding of how the sensors are impacted by biofouling in media.

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