Peter Fiske, pictured left above, and Carol Valladao, second from right above, are members of the NAWI team that will be honored with a 2020 Berkeley Lab Director’s Award. The team’s efforts culminated in Berkeley Lab being awarded the $100M DOE Water-Energy Hub, which represents the largest federal investment in water-treatment research in 50 years.
Two EESA scientists, Charuleka Varadharajan and Carl Steefel, have been selected to receive Director’s Awards in 2020. In addition, a team that includes Peter Fiske and Carol Valladao of EESA, are being honored for playing an essential role in Berkeley Lab’s award of the $100M DOE Water-Energy Hub, NAWI.
The Director’s Awards program recognizes significant achievements of Lab employees. Each year, these awards are given for accomplishments, leadership, collaboration, multi-disciplinary science, cross-divisional projects, and commitment to excellence in support of the Lab’s mission and strategic goals. Berkeley Lab employees submit nominations of individuals and teams, which are then reviewed by a Lab-wide Director’s Awards committee.
The NAWI Team which includes Peter Fiske and Carol Valladao of EESA, Jim Hawley of Berkeley Lab Government Relations (second from left above) Purabi Thakre of ETA (above center), Carol Valladao, and Berkeley Lab Counsel Michelle Chew Wong (far right above) were selected for demonstrating deep dedication to working assiduously and creatively to advance clever constructs and to overcome significant bottlenecks associated with developing the proposal and getting the award under contract.
Charu Varadharajan is one of four recipients this year of a Director’s Award honoring the Berkeley Lab scientists’ Early Scientific Careers. Presented in recognition of her exceptional achievements and leadership in the area of data science for earth and environmental science, her contributions have greatly impacted scientific understanding of these systems and influenced collaborations across teams and DOE-BER research directions.
Senior scientist Carl Steefel is being honored for pioneering the development of cutting-edge computational geoscience capabilities, for the discovery of complex hydro-biogeochemical processes that govern behavior of subsurface energy and environmental systems, and for establishing the discipline of reactive transport modeling using open source codes, which has propelled scientific discovery throughout the world.