Energy
Advanced Nuclear Power
https://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/aug/30/san-diego-tech-company-pushing-portable-nuclear-re/
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.1867?journalCode=pto&
While working for General Atomics, I led a group of extraordinary people who designed a revolutionary nuclear reactor that had ambitious goals. It was specially designed to be economically competitive with natural gas, inherently safe, proliferation-resistant, and burn the vast amounts of nuclear waste we have as an energy source. Energy Multiplier Module (EM2) is the highest power most compact fast-neutron gas-cooled reactor ever designed. It’s about the size of a school bus. EM2 is designed to be manufacturable in a factory and transported by truck in the U.S. Highway system to a site for deployment. The critical element in EM2 that makes it revolutionary is its ceramic cladding and fuel, which are both temperature and radiation-resistant. The temperature resistance enables a meltdown proof design, and the radiation resistance allows the fuel to burn more than six times longer (30 years) than conventional reactors. Both these features also reduce the amount of nuclear waste produced by an astonishing amount, 80%. Its high operating temperature also lowers the price of electricity by 40% relative to conventional light-water reactors. The above videos describe the design of EM2 while the Physics Today article explains the main issues surrounding the challenges of nuclear power.
Making Nuclear Reactors Safe
While Senior Vice President at General Atomics, a very talented scientist, Tina Back, was experimenting with a new material that could make nuclear reactors inherently safe. The discovery of new materials with the right characteristics can push out the performance of technologies. However, new knowledge is also needed to exploit them. This unique material is silicon carbide composite, a ceramic material that is both temperature and radiation-resistant. The “melt’ temperature of this material was very high, which allowed reactors designs such that the reactor fuel could never melt. We later discovered that the material is resistant to reaction with water, so it could also be used to improve the safety and performance of the current fleet of light-water reactors. I once explained this new material to Senator Dianne Feinstein. She immediately recognized the potential to improve public safety. Through legislation, she proposed a new Department of Energy program in Accident Tolerant Fuel to advance the safety of nuclear reactors. Through this program, work continues on this remarkable material. The above article provides some background on this effort.
A New National Test Facility for Nuclear power
While working at General Atomics, I became aware that existing National test facilities to advance nuclear power were all outdated, overly subscribed, and had limited performance to explore new materials and reactor designs. Inspired by this challenge, I came up with a new concept, The Versatile Test Reactor. The design of this novel test reactor would accelerate the testing of new materials, both fuels, and cladding. It would also allow experimentation of different reactor designs at one major user facility. I presented testimony before Congress on this new concept and worked with Congress on passing legislation to fund this much needed National facility to advance nuclear power. The site for this high-performance test facility will be Idaho National Laboratory. The above video is my Congressional testimony, which initiated this new effort.
Fusion Power
https://www.scpr.org/events/2014/06/30/1398/next-nuclear-fusion/
https://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/201701/fission-fusion.cfm
While at General Atomics, I was responsible for the largest fusion reactor facility in the US. I led the transition of this facility to an international user facility with an emphasis on the development of new instrumentation to advance the science of high-temperature plasmas to support the practical demonstration of fusion power. I also led the team that won the competition to develop the largest and most powerful pulsed magnet in the world, which is the most critical technology for ITER. ITER, located in Cadarache, France, will be the most significant experimental fusion reactor ever built involving six nations and the European Union. The goal of ITER is to demonstrate the feasibility of fusion power. The above video is a public discussion of fusion power, and the American Physical Society article explains the issues surrounding the different challenges of fission and fusion power.
Creation of U.S. Army STEM Education Programs
eCybermission
While Director for U.S. Army Research and Laboratory Management, I was tasked by U.S. Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, to create a new Science Fair for the Nation. I led the team that created this unique web-based competition, which has been inspiring students in grades 6-9 in all 50 States, U.S. Territories, and Possessions since 2002. In addition to the technical and logistical challenges that were required to create this competition, I had to work with Congress to pass new laws to allow the winners to receive awards. These laws were eventually expanded by Congress to apply to all the military services. The above video explains the nature of this unique science, technology, engineering, and mathematics competition.
U.S. Army Educational Outreach Program
Also, while Director for U.S. Army Research and Laboratory Management, I led a team to organize, expand, and create the U.S. Army Educational Outreach Program. This program is the largest in the Department of Defense, which reaches out to our youth as well as teachers from all economic, gender, and racial backgrounds across all 50 States, U.S. Territories, and Possessions, including U.S. Department of Defense schools around the world. It is a model of excellence in reaching out to our precious youth to enable them to achieve educational goals that they cannot accomplish through our K-12 school system.
Creation of Research Centers at the Frontiers of Science
University Affiliated Research Centers
Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University
https://www.asu.edu/feature/includes/spring05/readmore/flexdisplay.html
International Technology Alliance on Networks and Information Science – U.S. Army and the United Kingdom
https://www.arl.army.mil/www/default.cfm?page=77
Also, while Director for U.S. Army Research and Laboratory Management, I led the creation and management of several unique research centers at the frontiers of science and technology in the fields of virtual reality systems, biotechnology, nanotechnology, networks, and information science, and flexible display technology and manufacturing.
One of these Centers, The Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California, was awarded an Academy Award for its technical contributions to cinematography. Paul Debevec developed a unique technology that enables the insertion of people into existing filmed scenes. The people inserted into the scenes visually appear natural. Both Spiderman and Superman movies used this unique high-fidelity technology. This Center also led to the development of the high-tech company Oculus by founder Palmer Lucky who sold it to Facebook for $2 billion.
Another Center, The Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with collaborative partners Caltech and MIT, supported the early-stage research work of Dr. Francis Arnold of Caltech. She won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the 5th woman in history to receive this award. Dr. Arnold developed a process that exploits microorganisms for a revolutionary way of manufacturing substances by directing their evolution.
Finally, The Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at MIT, through the work of Tim Swager, developed a revolutionary handheld explosive detector that inspired the creation of the world’s first robotic dog that could see and sniff. This unique system saved many lives on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.
International Human Rights Activities
https://www.aps.org/units/fhp/newsletters/fall2015/upload/fall15.pdf
https://www.aps.org/units/fhp/newsletters/fall2015/human-rights.cfm
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.2995171
While Executive Director of the Panel on Public Affairs of the American Physical Society (APS), my mentor, Professor Herman Feshbach of MIT, and I led the creation and expansion of the international human rights activities of the APS. Through these activities, the APS came to the aid of scientists in the U.S.S.R., Argentina, Philippines, Romania, Poland, and China. During this period, I participated in the famous Moscow Seminar of Collective Phenomena. This Seminar was an unauthorized activity of Refuseniks (Soviet citizens who were refused visas to leave the U.S.S.R.) censored by the Soviet government. Victor Brailovsky, the leader of the Moscow Refuseniks at the time, held the Seminar in his apartment. In 1979, during my visit to the U.S.S.R., I managed to smuggle an article out of the U.S.S.R. written by a Jewish mathematician, Grigori Freiman. On November 25, 1979, the article appeared in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. It described the systematic practice of quotas in mathematics used by the Soviets based upon the ethnicity of mathematicians. I also submitted testimony to the U.S. Congress and the Committee on Security and Cooperation in Europe on human rights violations in the U.S.S.R. The above links provide some background on these groundbreaking human rights activities.
Army Venture Capital Initiative – OnPoint Technologies
While Director for U.S. Army Research and Laboratory Management, I was asked to create a venture capital corporation for the Army as a result of Congressional legislation. The notion of having an actual venture capital corporation in government seemed absurd. What does the government know about making a profit? How would one deal with conflicts of interest and political influence, which is pervasive throughout the government? Who would own such an entity, and how would it be funded? Would the Army have control over it, and in what way?
It was clear that the government would need a new approach to leveraging cutting-edge technology solutions from the private sector for Soldiers. With the help of my staff, we conducted a substantial amount of research into venture capital organizations. From our study, a unique way was adopted to form this new entity while limiting the influence of the traditional Army acquisition system. The corporation had no employees. It instead utilized a small Board of Trustees. A private sector firm managed the corporation and received an incentive when commercializing technology and transitioning it into the Army. This initiative was set up with primarily a one-time lump sum investment as an evergreen fund that had to use the money it made from its investments to fund itself. The entity, OnPoint Technologies, has had many successes, but like any venture capital operation, it has also had its share of failures. The above article explains the nature of this unique organization.
Research and Development Portfolio Analysis for Government
https://vdocuments.net/10-best-practices-research-and-development-portfolio-management.html
The Department of the Army, like all government organizations, has no systematic way of measuring research and development (R&D) investment performance to facilitate budget decisions. Generally, simply spending the money required by law is the only success metric that typically matters. If a government organization does not spend its R&D budget by the end of the fiscal year as required by law, the next year, its budget is reduced. This mindless practice troubled me during my tenure with the Army. I became familiar with the 3rd Generation R&D Portfolio Analysis developed by the business consulting firm A.D. Little. It’s a potentially powerful consensus-building approach to managing a portfolio of R&D investments and can be used to determine progress and future funding policy. It enables the customers, users, and stakeholders of the R&D to make decisions about current and future investments. Little did I know when I started this activity that this approach would eventually be adopted in some form by many government agencies. Of course, given the tendency of organizations to protect themselves, this approach has been abused and misused by some organizations. The above article explains how this approach works and how it was adapted to more effectively utilize government investment of taxpayer dollars.
Biotechnology
https://www.nae.edu/7576/ArmyTransformationParadigm-ShiftingCapabilitiesthroughBiotechnology
While I am a physicist by training, I have always been fascinated by the living world and in particular, the extraordinary materials and capabilities that have been the result of four billion years of evolution. I was asked by the National Academy of Engineering to write the above article, where I speculate on how the Army might leverage the results of 4 billion years of evolution.
Network Science
https://archive.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53166
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_science
One day while taking a shower, an idea came to me that there might be a connection between human-engineered and biologically evolved networks. Humans have created communication networks, transportation networks, financial networks, etc., however, in the living world there are networks represented as families, communities, towns, cities, the global village, and there are networks of social insects, schools of fish, flocks of birds, ecosystems, and so on. At a more fundamental level, there are cells that network to form tissue and tissue that networks to form organs and organs that network to form organisms. Even inside cells, there are networks of chemical processes that enable the process of metabolism. As I thought more deeply about this, networks of all sorts had common structural features, which suggested there may be an underlying science of networks. The above article is an interview I had during the early stages of this idea. The Wikipedia link describes my role in the field of network science. This exciting field continues to grow, and remarkable discoveries are being made every day all over the world.
Food Security through Algae Farming
https://www.sdbj.com/news/2015/may/29/sector-shifts-biofuel-running-out-gas/
While Senior Vice President at General Atomics, I inherited an ill-conceived Defense Advanced Research Project Agency program involving algae to produce oil to power combustion engines. The idea was to use the CO2 emissions from a local power company as food for algae growing in high-tech ponds. After analyzing the economics of this concept, it became clear that it was a total loser, and the real value was not the oil but the protein from the bulk composition of the algae. After analyzing the amino acid composition of the algae, it became clear that its composition was very similar to the protein in aqua-feed for fish farming. Given projected world population growth and increasing limitations of available protein to expand fish farming, growing algae in arid climates could supply protein for both land and ocean fish farming. The challenge is doing the risky research required to determine the optimal feed compositions with the proper amounts of algae protein at various stages of fish growth. The research to accomplish this appears to be too risky for the private sector, and government-funded R&D is not structurally organized to support this kind of research. Given the tremendous need and opportunity to help humanity, something should be done to explore this path to food security for the world. The above link provides some background on this effort.
First Robotic Dog that Sees and Sniffs
https://asc.army.mil/web/news-alt-jfm18-how-many-robots-does-it-take/
During my tenure as Director for Army Research and Laboratory Management, I came up with the idea of creating the first robotic dog that could see and sniff explosives. This idea was inspired by the world’s most sensitive explosive detector invented by a remarkable team of scientists at the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at MIT. The effort to develop the system in the Department of Defense involved an extraordinary group of individuals. The above article describes this effort, which set a record for the production of this remarkable system in 90 days. It saved Soldiers’ lives on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.