About Us
Seaborg Institute
The ORNL Glenn T. Seaborg Institute, or GTSI, founded Oct. 1, 2022, serves as a center for actinide science, facilitating global leadership through the performance of cutting-edge research, national and international collaboration, and the training of the next generation of scientists and engineers.
ORNL News Photo – Glenn Seaborg at the High Flux Isotope Reactor, HFIR.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory joins four other national laboratories — Idaho, Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley — that have institutes named after nuclear chemist Seaborg. Seaborg grouped and named the actinides —the 15 metallic elements on the periodic table with atomic numbers from 89-103, actinium through lawrencium. His work garnered him the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and his legacy continues in institutes that bear his name and focus on the study of these unstable radioactive elements.
“While the fundamental mission and vision is similar
End of Cycle Spent Fuel in the Reactor Vessel, HFIR reactor pool, High Flux Isotope Reactor, July 12, 2015. Image has been reviewed by Chris Poe and David Blanchard and are approved for public release, July 2015.
across all of the Seaborg Institutes, each institute focuses on the core capabilities and missions of its home lab,” said Sam Schrell, director the ORNL Seaborg Institute. “At ORNL, we have a lot of capabilities and expertise — for example, the High Flux Isotope Reactor, the Radiochemical Engineering Development Center, and our neutron, bioscience and computational capabilities.”
Schrell said ORNL will grow interest in the institute and actinide science by hosting workshops for academic institutions, including those serving primarily minorities. It will also support postdoctoral fellowships and graduate student fellowships.
Long-term, the institute will showcase actinide science around the Southeast. Schrell expects the center to retain talented early-career scientists and engineers as well as attracting high-caliber, experienced students and staff.
“Glenn Seaborg strongly believed in developing the next generation,” she said. “He was quoted as saying, ‘The education of young people in science is at least as important, maybe more so, than the research itself.’”