Announcements

January 2023 Edition

Uta Ruett, Physicist, Group Leader, XSD

Are successful women in science and math truly exceptional, or do social biases simply frame them that way?

Uta Ruett, a physicist and group leader in the X-ray Sciences Division (XSD), faced this question as a young student in Germany. While she easily achieved high scores in physics and math and was often labeled “exceptional” for her work, female peers were routinely rated lower than boys showing very similar performance.

“How is this fair?” Ruett remembers wondering. “I was always told, ‘Uta, you are an exception!’ But I never wanted to be treated as an exception. I truly think it was bias.”

Ruett received considerable support from instructors and mentors in both Germany and the United States. Eventually, she earned a PhD in Physics from the University of Hamburg. However, even after earning that difficult degree and excelling in her work, she ran into overt discouragement based on her sex.

“When I was told by someone I admired that I shouldn’t waste my time getting a PhD because eventually I would just get married, have children and then drop out, it was very hurtful,” said Ruett. “It also took me off guard because he was kind in every other way. I think he just said what many people think. And it was indeed a question for me, if I could work in science and still be a mother in the future.”

In fact, Ruett did get married, have three children in short sequence, and paused her career. She was offered a part-time position as scientist after staying at home with her first son for more than a year. The professor who encouraged her return to work was very supportive of women in science and continued to offer highly flexible work conditions after her second son was born.

The position ramped quickly into more time-consuming ones. Ruett alternated between onsite and remote work, putting in unusual hours at night and on weekends. “I tried to make it look easy, but it wasn’t easy,” said Ruett with a laugh.

Today, she advocates for other women and caregivers at Argonne to have better experiences. As president of Argonne’s Employee Resource Group for parents and caregivers (PACE), she believes that the more flexible work options encouraged during the pandemic are a huge step forward for women and society in general.

“Remote work, if possible, is a real breakthrough,” she said. “You do have to adjust the workflow, but it can be a huge win-win.”

Ruett believes it’s also important that men who step up as caregivers themselves talk about it. “When a male director at Argonne says that he has to reschedule an appointment because he needs to drive his daughter to the dentist, it demonstrates acceptance and respect for work-life balance on all career levels.”

January 2023 Edition

Qiang Dai, Sustainability Analyst, AMD

Growing up, Qiang Dai watched a familiar and beloved clear lake turn milky green. It was eventually designated one of the most polluted in China. Dai always hoped she could help clean it up one day, and so she developed a plan to do it. She majored in environmental engineering in Tianjin University, specializing in water treatment technologies, and finished two years of a related PhD at the University of Michigan.

Then, Dai’s plan went sideways.

Funding issues forced Dai to change her area of focus. Her advisor stepped in and helped her get involved in a study on the environmental impacts of natural gas-powered passenger mobility options. The project introduced her to life cycle assessment, and opened her mind to ways to protect the environment beyond water treatment. Ultimately, the project became the heart of her PhD thesis, and laid the foundation for her research on the sustainability of energy and transportation systems, with a focus on batteries.

“Sometimes things don’t go as planned, and you will be thrown off trail,” said Dai. “But, if you persevere, even seemingly unrelated dots will eventually be connected to guide you to where you want to be.”

Today, Dai is a sustainability analyst in Argonne’s Applied Material Division. She works with industry, academia, and government agencies to analyze the cost and environmental impacts of decarbonization technologies. A key area of focus is in the ReCell Center, where her work informs research and development of cost-effective and environmentally beneficial battery recycling technologies.

She thrives in her new role but sometimes still finds herself adjusting to the turn her career plan took.

“I was trained as an engineer, but now I primarily work on modeling and analyses that produce results which are hard – if not impossible – to validate,” said Dai, who has been in her current field for about 10 years. “Changing my mindset to embrace uncertainties and even unknowns has been the most significant barrier in my career. I had to develop methods to address those uncertainties and unknowns, and learn to accept that even results with great uncertainty could provide valuable insights.”

Much of Dai’s work resides in the public domain, which she finds very rewarding. It can be accessed by anyone from anywhere in the world, which means she knows her work has impact. Her research informs public policy and companies can also use it to better understand where their CO2 emissions come from. This may lead to finding ways to reduce emissions, which ties back to her initial interest in cleaning up the environment.

Dai tries to be mindful of maintaining physical and mental health, starting first and foremost with her funny bone. When asked how she keeps her professional and personal life in balance, she joked: “Sunshine and dog videos, plus two ‘carbon-rich fuels’: Coca-Cola and french fries!”

 

November 2022 Edition

Carolyn Tomchik, Nuclear Engineer, NSE

Like many matriculating college freshmen, Carolyn Tomchik did not really know what nuclear engineering was.

“I had a very loose understanding that I might like to figure out how things worked, solve mysteries, and work with my hands,” said Tomchik, a nuclear engineer in Argonne’s NSE division. Her interests were many and varied, but she was drawn to learning about carbon-free sources of energy to power daily life: solar, geothermal, wind and, especially, nuclear.  Ultimately, she earned her PhD in nuclear engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and joined Argonne, where she focuses on the performance of nuclear reactor fuels and structural materials for use in next-generation reactors.

“My work examines the operating limits of various nuclear fuel designs,” she explained. “How much can a material or fuel withstand before it fails? We want to engineer materials that can withstand not only a lifetime of normal reactor operation, but also any accident or abnormal scenario.”

This interest in identifying and overcoming limits translates well to another role Tomchik holds as a co-chair of the AET/NTNS Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council.

“I have the good fortune that the lab, current events, and social justice are things I am thinking about anyway,” said Tomchik, who does a heavy amount of reflection, planning, and news gathering via podcasts during her 45- to 60-minute drives to and from the lab. “I am not always stealing time from myself. I am thinking about this stuff anyway and asking myself, ‘What can I do to fix things?’”

She gives a lot of thought to ongoing changes and how the lab can continue doing a good job recognizing and addressing inequities when they almost inevitably arise.

“Society constantly changes, circumstances change and new inequities and disadvantages arise,” said Tomchik, who points to the emergence of hybrid workforces as an example of a group that may face rising disadvantages in mentoring or advancement. “It’s important to understand historical inequities, and it’s important that new and worsening disparities get noticed and taken seriously as well.”

She is proud of the example she sets for her children, who are already impressed that their self-described “maker” mom can construct complex Lego or woodworking projects and help combat climate change through work that will expand use of clean, green nuclear power.

“It’s good for them to see me care deeply about things and work to fix things,” she said. “I talk to them about what I care about – a clean and safe environment, a just and equitable society, their safety and happiness – and then I show them that I care enough to do something.”

November 2022 Edition

Caitlyn Sarna, Risk Analyst, DIS

An intelligence and emergency management analyst for the Counterterrorism and Security Planning Group of the Decision and Infrastructure Sciences Division (DIS), Caitlyn Sarna routinely encounters and thinks through communities’ worst days. But, that’s also an intellectual space in which she has learned to thrive.

“I’ve always wanted to help people and emergency management is a good fit for that,” said Sarna. “I make plans, procedures, trainings, and exercises in anticipation of communities’ worst days.”

Sarna was introduced to her field by none other than media mogul Oprah Winfrey, who hired her to handle operations and security in anticipation of celebrity and studio guests on the daytime talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show. Sarna watched, listened, and learned on the job. In her next position at a major university laboratory, she got a taste of managing a true emergency when a colleague was exposed to anthrax. She went on to earn a Master’s degree in science: emergency threat and response management at the University of Chicago and hasn’t looked back since. In fact, she now helps teach the program’s courses to the next generation of emergency managers.

“I have the best of both worlds,” said Sarna, whose strength in language arts, history and reading led initially to a degree in political science and religion. “I am not a hands-on scientist in a lab doing experiments, but I am in the lab culture and I’m able to take scientists’ and industry leaders ideas and data, put them on paper and analyze a variety of threats that may be  hard for others to understand.”

Sarna travels often for work, which can make it difficult to strike a healthy work-home balance. Her husband manages their two children’s schedules with additional help from neighbors and friends. A pandemic-inspired commitment to running and working out have improved her overall health, both physically and mentally.

“I love that I can disconnect form work when I put on my headphones and gym shoes,” she said. “For my job, I prepare for a lot of stuff. With running, I don’t need to prep for it. I just go!”

Another thing Sarna loves is organizing Argonne’s Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day program, which she says might be her favorite workday of the year.

“It is so neat to see girls have an intimate opportunity with a   scientist, and to have those interactions take place,” said Sarna. “Even If I can just change one life, I’ll do it again and again. We need every girl or woman in science.”

November 2022 Edition

Laura Jamison, Principal Nuclear Engineer, CFCT

Nuclear engineer Laura Jamison is fearless. Or, at least, she has gotten very good at overcoming fears.

For example, consider her line of work. Growing up in the 1980s, “clean, green energy” was not the first thing that popped into most people’s minds when they heard the word “nuclear.” Today, she provides technical leadership and experimental expertise to the fuel development and qualification campaign of the U.S. High Performance Research Reactor (USHPRR) conversion program, which is sponsored by NNSA-DNN Office of Materials Management and Minimization.

Or consider her recreational pastime: playing hockey, primarily as goalie. Deflecting fast-flying hockey pucks might not be the safest, most relaxing place that comes to mind when one thinks about unwinding from work. But for Jamison, neither of those things are scary. She loves both.

“When I was growing up, nuclear was a scary word,” said Jamison, who earned her doctorate in Materials Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “However, I became interested in nuclear engineering as the most complex environment a material will ever be in: chemical reactions, thermal gradients, and constant rearrangement at the atomic level, all occurring at once. As I learned more about nuclear power, the advantages of it as a carbon-free power source further increased my interest in the field.”

Now, she works to advance nuclear non-proliferation through fuel development and qualification in Argonne’s Chemical and Fuel Cycle Technologies division. She contributes to the European High Flux Reactor conversion program, a program that converts research reactors using high-enriched uranium into ones that use low-enriched uranium fuel. She also works under the NNSA in the Proliferation Resistance and Optimization of Research Reactors (PRO-RR) program.

“I love the broad impact my work has,” Jamison said. “My focus may be on completing a specific experiment in the lab, or researching a particular material property, but the result of that work can have impact across the United States and the world.”

Jamison also finds satisfaction in simple completion of work tasks or activities, but this entails deliberate suppression of another common fear: Missing a work email.

“I turn off email notifications on my phone so there is no temptation to check,” she said. “I truly step away from work on my days off.”

This strategy, along with the physical exertion of hockey, helps her award herself much-needed mental breaks from work.

Her advice to young female women scientists is to seek out mentoring organizations, be willing to jump into new projects and be flexible about roles. Also, rely on colleagues and don’t feel you have to know everything in order to get involved.

“No one knows everything,” said Jamison.