LBNL Director's Awards 2016 - Earth and Environmental Sciences Area

The Director’s Awards program recognizes significant achievements of Berkeley 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.

The 2016 recipients of the Director’s Achievement Awards were recognized this month. To see a complete list of past and current recipients, go to the Director’s Awards webpage.

Congratulations to this year’s recipients in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area!

Outreach/Diversity – Javier Ceja Navarro

For outstanding contributions to the dissemination of Berkeley Lab science locally, nationally and internationally to the public, students, scientists and other stakeholders and for significant efforts to extend outreach activities to under represented minorities.

Societal Impact – Barry Freifeld, Preston Jordan, Curt Oldenburg, and Lehua Pan

For their contributions to solving the Aliso Canyon well blowout disaster in Southern California, and to making future natural gas storage profoundly safer through insistence that regulations require two or more barriers to contain gas pressure in wells.

Service Achievement based on Microbes to Biomes – Eoin Brodie, Peter Nico, and folks from BSA (not pictured)

For exemplary efforts to enhance microbiome research across Berkeley Lab and the nation, to build an integrative facility, and to establish Berkeley Lab’s leading role in understanding, predicting, and harnessing critical microbiomes for fuel, food, environmental security and human health.

Early Career – Haruko Wainwright

Dr. Wainwright is nominated for pioneering zonation-based estimation methodologies, with a focus on novel approaches that use geophysical data and their application to DOE challenges in environmental remediation, carbon cycle, and water resources (Wainwright et al., 2014; 2015; 2016).

News & Events

Three EESA scientists receive DOE Early Career Research Awards

August 10, 2017

Three Earth and Environmental Sciences Area (EESA) scientists receive the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science Early Career Research Award for 2017. Congratulations to Nick Bouskill, Charlie Koven, and Neslihan Tas Baas.

EESA Develops New Approach to Restock California’s Groundwater via Almond Orchards, Vineyards

August 3, 2017

Groundwater—the water stored underneath the Earth’s surface between the cracks and spaces in soil, sand, and bedrock—is essential for the California residents and farmers who rely on it for up to 46 percent of their annual water use. Yet during the 2012-2017 drought, the state’s surface water supply was not sufficient to meet demand, resulting in excess groundwater pumping that caused land subsidence of up to 13 inches in some parts of the San Joaquin Valley.

Now a team of scientists at Berkeley Lab’s Earth & Environmental Sciences Area are working with farmers and partners like the Almond Board of California and UC Davis to test on-farm banking, a new approach that has the potential to manage groundwater more sustainably. It’s an improvement on the age-old method of groundwater recharge, the process of replenishing aquifers by infiltrating water from the surface into shallow aquifers.

“On-farm banking has the promise of making the most productive use of the greatest amount of land possible while increasing the reliability and resiliency of California’s groundwater supply,” says EESA scientist Peter Nico, a soil and environmental biogeochemist.

EESA Scientist Builds Cross-Border Collaborations for Geothermal Research

August 1, 2017

Thirty-five years ago, Berkeley Lab’s Earth & Environmental Sciences Area (EESA) scientist Patrick Dobson began his career as a graduate student by conducting field mapping, collecting fluid samples, and learning the ropes from local scientists at the Los Azufres geothermal field in Michoacán, Mexico. During his summer doing field work in Mexico, he met Berkeley Lab’s Marcelo Lippmann, who was attending a symposium on the Cerro Prieto geothermal field, the subject of a collaborative research project between the Lab (funded by the U.S. Department of Energy) and the Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), Mexico’s state-owned utility.

Now—after decades of leading geothermal exploration projects all over the world, including Indonesia, Central America, and South America— Dobson’s work has come full circle.

Earlier this year, he spent two weeks in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico as a Fulbright Specialist in geothermal research. Hosted by the Center for Scientific Investigation and Higher Education in Ensenada (CICESE), one of the main hubs for geothermal work in the country, Dobson met with Mexican researchers to share knowledge, identify areas of mutual interest, and explore potential areas of collaboration.

Berkeley Lab Scientists Brief California Science Advisory Panel for Food and Agriculture

July 28, 2017

As two-thirds of the fruits and nuts—and over a third of the vegetables—produced in the United States are grown in California, it’s crucial that the Golden State cultivate healthy soils that are resilient to stresses such as climate change, drought, and groundwater overuse. Now scientists at Berkeley Lab’s Earth & Environmental Sciences Area (EESA) and Biosciences Area are contributing to the effort by sharing their expertise with the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA)’s Science Advisory Panel, a group comprised of farmers, agriculture professionals, and experts in areas such as water, conservation, and resource management. Last week, EESA scientist Peter Nico hosted the panel at the Lab to brief them on research related to developing healthy soils, sustainable groundwater management strategies, and climate-adaptive agriculture.