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Suggested Citation:"6 Dissemination of Outputs." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. An Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: Fiscal Year 2021. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26418.
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6

Dissemination of Outputs

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) program activities can take the form of publications; participation and organization of workshops and summer schools; the formation of consortia that extend the work of NCNR to industry, academia, and other government agencies; and education and outreach efforts for the benefit of middle school, high school, and undergraduate students.

PUBLICATIONS

The publication output of NCNR continues to be very strong, with the past 2 years (2019 and 2020) resulting in a total of 665 publications in 209 journals. Numbers of publications by year are shown in Figure 6.1; these numbers show an upward trend over three decades.

Image
FIGURE 6.1 Number of publications by year at NCNR. SOURCE: Presentation given to the panel by Dan Neuman, July 20, 2021.
Suggested Citation:"6 Dissemination of Outputs." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. An Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: Fiscal Year 2021. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26418.
×

During 2019 and 2020, the journals that exhibited the most recurrence were Physical Review B (publications = 57, impact factor [IF] = 3.575), Soft Matter (publications = 20, IF = 3.14), Physical Review Materials (publications = 30, IF = 3.337), Physical Review Letters (publications = 21, IF = 8.385), and Macromolecules (publications = 31, IF = 5.918). All of these are excellent journals with robust peer review. NCNR researchers also published in journals of the highest impact. From the perspective of citations, the record shows top papers,1 as listed in Appendix D. NCNR is performing at a level of excellence, and there are no apparent challenges that need to be met.

WORKSHOPS AND EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS

NCNR has been very active in outreach activities, and NCNR staff2 reported that the researchers at NCNR are enthusiastically engaged in it.

Accomplishments

The flagship outreach program is the highly successful Center for High Resolution Neutron Scattering (CHRNS)-sponsored summer school for graduate students and young scientists. In 2018 (June 19–23), the summer school focused on “Methods and Applications of Small Angle Neutron Scattering and Neutron Reflectivity.” Forty-two graduate and postdoctoral students from 32 universities and five industrial researchers participated in the school. In 2019 (July 22–26), the summer school focused on “Methods and Applications of Neutron Spectroscopy.” Thirty-four graduate and postdoctoral students from 29 universities participated in the school.

The 2020 summer school was held virtually in February 2021 because of the pandemic. The “Virtual School on SANS and Neutron Reflectometry” had the participation of 36 students affiliated with North American universities and U.S. industry located in 22 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and Mexico. Students came from a diverse set of backgrounds including chemical engineering, materials science and engineering, chemistry, physics, biochemistry, biomolecular engineering, energy, mechanical engineering, aerospace and nuclear engineering, polymer science, and electrical and computer engineering. Typically, members of underrepresented groups comprise more than 30 percent of participants, although specific numbers for each year were not provided.

The Summer High School Intern Program (SHIP) is a very successful, competitive NIST-wide program for students who are interested in performing scientific research during the summer. In 2018, CHRNS hosted seven interns from local high schools. The students studied the environmental factors that contribute to glass aging and alteration, explored segmentation techniques for analysis of neutron images of meteorites, developed reinforcement learning algorithms for efficiently obtaining crystallographic measurements, and automated a slit rheometer for SANS and a neutron spin flipper. The results of the students’ summer investigations were highlighted in a NIST-wide poster session, as well as in a well-attended symposium at the NCNR.

In 2019, CHRNS hosted eight interns from local high schools. The students investigated magnetic dead layers in rhombohedral perovskites, created an enhanced web interface for the NCNR data repository, improved phase segmentation techniques for analysis of neutron tomography images, developed reinforcement learning algorithms for efficiently obtaining crystallographic measurements, and optimized a neutron spin flipper using active learning algorithms. The results of the students’ summer investigations were highlighted in a NIST-wide poster session, as well as in a well-attended symposium at the NCNR.

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1 According to Google Scholar, July 28, 2021.

2 J. Dura, NIST, 2021, “Education and Outreach Activities at the NCNR,” presentation to the Panel on Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research, July 20.

Suggested Citation:"6 Dissemination of Outputs." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. An Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: Fiscal Year 2021. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26418.
×

In lieu of the NIST-wide SHIP in the summer of 2020, CHRNS remotely hosted six interns from local high schools. The students optimized algorithms for fitting order parameters through reinforcement learning, explored security benchmark implementations for Linux, supplemented an augmented reality training simulation program for the reactor operators, and developed an analysis program for prompt gamma activation spectra. The results of the students’ summer investigations were highlighted at a virtual symposium in August 2020. During summer 2021, the program was virtual, with the participation of four students.

CHRNS co-sponsored several other workshops, including the second, third, and fourth Fundamentals of Quantum Materials winter school at the University of Maryland (January 8–11, 2018; January 14–19, 2019; January 6–9, 2020); the fifth Neutron Day at the University of Delaware (November 8, 2017); the second biennial International Society for Sample Environment training course at NIST (November 13–17, 2017); and the 8th annual international Design and Engineering of Neutron Instruments Meeting (DENIM), which was held in North Bethesda, Maryland (September 17–19, 2019). More than 125 people attended DENIM from more than 15 countries, comprising participants from other neutron scattering institutes, universities, and the corporations that support the community. DENIM was held under the patronage of the International Society of Neutron Instrument Engineers (ISNIE) and organized jointly by NCNR and the University of Maryland. In 2019, NCNR also hosted the 2nd annual ISNIE summer school with a focus on neutron guides.

CHRNS continues to participate in NIST’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program. In 2018, CHRNS hosted 19 SURF students, including 7 returning interns, one of whom previously participated in the SHIP program. The students participated in research projects such as exploration of the rheological properties of dense lipid vesicle solutions, characterization of adjuvant-protein interactions in vaccines, fabrication of crosslinked silica-based nanoporous networks, Monte Carlo exploration of focused neutron guide geometries, and development of a virtual training simulator for reactor operators using a HoloLens technology. The students presented their work at the NIST SURF colloquium in August 2018.

In 2019, CHRNS hosted 15 SURF students, including 2 previous SHIP students. The students performed research on topics ranging from self-assembled amphiphilic diblock copolymers, oral insulin delivery via microencapsulation, depth dependence of skyrmions in thin films, and the thermal-hydraulics feasibility for an ultra-compact nuclear reactor. They presented their work at the NIST SURF colloquium in August 2019.

Because of the pandemic, this program was cancelled during 2020. Currently (2021), the program is active in a virtual format with 10 students.

CHRNS initiated a Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program in 2010. For the summer of 2018, the program hosted two teachers from Montgomery County, Maryland. Scott Hanna from Winston Churchill High School studied the microscopic dynamics of liquid and solid hydrogen using the Disk Chopper Spectrometer (DCS) under the guidance of Tim Prisk and Richard Azuah. Munna Chakrabarti from Watkins Mill High School investigated the rheological properties on an insulin analogue using SANS with mentor Grethe Jensen.

For the summer of 2019, the program again hosted two teachers from Montgomery County, Maryland. Scott Hanna from Winston Churchill High School returned for a second year to study the diffusion of quantum liquids in bulk and confinement using DCS under the guidance of Tim Prisk and Richard Azuah. Brennan Boothby from the Nora School investigated pluronic micelles in polymer nanocomposites using SANS with mentors Liz Kelley and Antonio Faraone. Both Mr. Hanna and Mr. Boothby highlighted their research in oral presentations in August 2019.

Many specialized tours and other activities for middle school, high school, and university students are offered throughout the year, including the Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWIP) tour, which was attended by 150 female STEM students. In typical years, CHRNS staff members also give science-based talks, participate in Career Days, or lead hands-on demonstrations at local schools, participate in STEM events, and even volunteer as robotics coaches.

Suggested Citation:"6 Dissemination of Outputs." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. An Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: Fiscal Year 2021. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26418.
×

Challenges and Opportunities

Based on the experiences of the past year, it is likely that virtual offerings will be expanded. The success of the virtual school has also prompted discussions of new training events, tailored to specific audiences, either completely online or with a virtual component. For instance, satellite events (e.g., proposal writing workshops) and office hours can be held in a virtual environment. CHRNS will use the opportunity provided by the current increased telework environment to develop a new virtual or hybrid activity that will incorporate some of the most successful aspects of the virtual summer school.3 This program, which will have a specific focus on enhancing the diversity of CHRNS users, will be started before the end of 2021. This is an excellent opportunity, and assessments should be provided in future evaluations.

Limited information on the numbers of tours and participants are available in the annual reports and the Education and Outreach Handout provided to the panel. A tracking system and assessment for these programs is necessary to determine impact.

A new program, CHRNS Outreach and Research Experience (CORE), is currently being developed. It looks promising and has as objective to extend the summer research activities to the academic year. Detailed statistics on participation of underrepresented students and women would be relevant for future assessments.

COLLABORATIONS

Accomplishments

Over the 2018 reporting year, NCNR served 2,742 researchers. Research participants included users who come to NCNR to use the facility, as well as active collaborators, including co-proposers of approved experiments, and co-authors of publications resulting from work performed at NCNR. Research participants were from 22 NIST divisions and offices, 37 U.S. government laboratories, 42 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, 51 U.S. corporations, and 185 U.S. universities.4

Over the 2019 reporting year, NCNR served 2,769 researchers. Research participants were from 17 NIST divisions and offices, 38 U.S. government laboratories, 42 U.S. states and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, 50 U.S. corporations, and 181 U.S. universities.5

Over the 2020 reporting year, NCNR served 3,068 researchers. Research participants were from 19 NIST divisions and offices, 36 U.S. government laboratories, 44 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, 49 U.S. corporations, and 169 U.S. universities.6

NCNR also has established several partnerships, including the NG-7 SANS Consortium, the nSoft Consortium, the NIST/General Motors—Neutron Imaging partnership, and several interagency collaborations (with the Smithsonian Institution’s Nuclear Laboratory for Archeological Research and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s [FDA’s] Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition).

CHRNS pursues many avenues for engaging researchers from institutions that serve diverse groups.7 A partnership between CHRNS and the Interdisciplinary Materials Research and Education Laboratory (IMREL) at Fayetteville State University (FSU) was established in August 2018 through the National

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3 J. Dura, NIST, 2021.

4 NIST Center for Neutron Research, 2018 Accomplishments and Opportunities, February 2019, https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.1231.pdf, accessed October 19, 2021.

5 NIST Center for Neutron Research, 2019 Accomplishments and Opportunities, December 2019, https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.1242.pdf, accessed October 19, 2021.

6 NIST Center for Neutron Research, 2020 Accomplishments and Opportunities, December 2020. https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.1257.pdf, accessed December 7, 2021.

7 J. Dura, NIST, 2021.

Suggested Citation:"6 Dissemination of Outputs." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. An Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: Fiscal Year 2021. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26418.
×

Science Foundation (NSF) Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials (PREM) program (Agreement No. DMR-1827731). This partnership is organized around a common theme of structure-processing-property correlations of nanomaterials to support student training in the context of research using neutron scattering. During the summer of 2019, CHRNS staff members hosted two PREM interns (Candyce Collins and Washat Roxanne Ware).

Challenges and Opportunities

As part of its expanding education and outreach effort, CHRNS offers to university-based research groups with Beam-Time Allocation Committee (BTAC)-approved experimental proposals the opportunity to request travel support for an additional graduate student to participate in the experiment.8 This support is intended to enable prospective thesis students, for example, to acquire first-hand experience with a technique that they may later use in their own research. Announcements of this program are sent to all the university groups whose experimental proposals receive beamtime from the BTAC. Recipients of the announcement are encouraged to consider graduate students from underrepresented groups for this opportunity. There were 13 participants in 2018, 12 participants in 2019, and 3 participants in 2020 (Q1). No demographic information on these students were provided; thus, it is not possible to evaluate how many are from underrepresented groups. It would be important to elucidate this information in future reporting.

As a new initiative in the CHRNS grant renewal, this travel funds opportunity will be expanded to include a limited number of travel awards to enable graduate students or postdoctorates to attend workshops or related CHRNS-sponsored events, once travel to NIST is opened again to users. These efforts are commendable, and there is an intention to grow opportunities. It would be important to include specific statistics and numbers regarding these funds in future years.

Also, CHRNS is launching a partnership with California State University, San Bernardino, within the NSF Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) program as part of their new Phase II Center for Advanced Functional Materials (HRD-1914777). Two PREM proposals (with the University of Texas, San Antonio and Morgan State University) are also currently pending. Details of these collaborations and outcomes are important in a future review.

Information on the numbers of National Research Council fellows and NIST Director’s fellows was not provided. This information and further details would be important to determine the impact of these fellowships. Also, none of the documentation provided described the number and details of current Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs). Where these CRADAs are heading is an important component of the evaluation of collaborations. There also appear to be collaborations with the University of Texas, El Paso; University of the District of Columbia; Northeastern State University; and Texas A&M, Kingsville, but no details on these collaborations were provided. Future reporting should include details of these collaborations.

Finding: NCNR has been very active in outreach activities. The flagship outreach program is the long-running Center for High Resolution Neutron Scattering (CHRNS)-sponsored summer school for graduate students and young scientists, which pivoted successfully to fully online in 2020. More than 30 percent of the attendees are from under-represented groups, and more than three-quarters of the attendees return as users. CHRNS pursues many avenues for engaging researchers from institutions that serve diverse groups, including travel support for an additional graduate student as part of the beamtime allocated to awarded proposals. It also provides outreach, and tours during the year from middle school up to high school and summer programs for teachers, high school students, and undergraduates. CHRNS will use the opportunity provided by the current increased telework environment to develop a new virtual or hybrid activity that will incorporate some of the most

___________________

8 J. Dura, NIST, 2021.

Suggested Citation:"6 Dissemination of Outputs." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. An Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: Fiscal Year 2021. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26418.
×

successful aspects of the virtual summer school. This program, which will have a specific focus on enhancing the diversity of CHRNS users, will be started soon.

Conclusion: NCNR pursues most of the myriad outreach activities through CHRNS, in order to recruit underrepresented groups into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and new neutron scattering users and to assist local schools and communities.

RECOMMENDATION: Information on the size, underrepresented population served, and outcomes of the many training, partnership, and outreach activities per year should be provided in the future in order to better assess their impact.

Suggested Citation:"6 Dissemination of Outputs." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. An Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: Fiscal Year 2021. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26418.
×
Page 43
Suggested Citation:"6 Dissemination of Outputs." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. An Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: Fiscal Year 2021. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26418.
×
Page 44
Suggested Citation:"6 Dissemination of Outputs." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. An Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: Fiscal Year 2021. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26418.
×
Page 45
Suggested Citation:"6 Dissemination of Outputs." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. An Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: Fiscal Year 2021. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26418.
×
Page 46
Suggested Citation:"6 Dissemination of Outputs." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. An Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: Fiscal Year 2021. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26418.
×
Page 47
Suggested Citation:"6 Dissemination of Outputs." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. An Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: Fiscal Year 2021. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26418.
×
Page 48
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An Assessment of the Center for Neutron Research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: Fiscal Year 2021 Get This Book
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At the request of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has, since 1959, annually assembled panels of experts from academia, industry, medicine, and other scientific and engineering communities to assess the quality and effectiveness of the NIST measurements and standards laboratories. The NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) is one of six major research organizational units consisting of five laboratories and one user facility at NIST. It is one of only three neutron scattering user facilities in the United States, with 30 instruments, supporting roughly one-third of the U.S. neutron scattering instruments and users. This report assesses the scientific and technical work performed by the NCNR, as well as the portfolio of scientific expertise within the organization and dissemination of program outputs.

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