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View from the Inside

An Unusual Mix

Bill Millman talks about managing a division that combines three diverse scientific disciplines— Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences.

by Nona Shepard

William S. Millman"The DOE is one of the few places you'll find an organizational grouping of different disciplines of science," said William S. Millman, Acting Director of the division of the Office of Basic Energy Sciences that supports research in chemical sciences, geosciences, and energy biosciences. Dr. Millman and his staff administer a basic research program with an annual budget of $260 million.


ES News: Bill, your Division supports an unusual mix of disciplines. Why so?

Millman: There are unique opportunities at the interfaces between the disciplines; and, if the past is any predictor, it's at these interfaces where major scientific breakthroughs are expected. The possibilities within these kinds of research groupings are staggering.

The DOE is one of the few places you'll find an organizational grouping of different disciplines of science. Most other Federal research agencies are organized more in tune with educational institutions—by academic disciplines. Our division has a discipline-based substructure but the overarching organization is by multidisciplinary areas so as to yield synergy.

ES News: The Office of Science emphasizes that its research is mission-oriented, fundamental research. Can you relate the Office of Science's research more explicitly to DOE's missions?

Millman: Yes, for example, our Division doesn't support all areas of chemistry. It supports research that improves our understanding of new energy sources, improves energy efficiency, and cleans up the environmental impact of energy use. Also, the Department's weapons mission gives us responsibilities in areas that have a unique legacy, such as the chemistry of the transuranic elements, or those elements in the periodic table beyond uranium.

I can think of other relationships within geosciences— understanding how to predict and characterize earthquakes so we can safely site energy facilities; imaging underground water systems so we can site storage for radioactive waste; studying the geochemistry that influences taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and immobilizing it underground (carbon sequestration), and also studying what effect the structure of rocks and water flow have in these systems. Those are important issues that require fundamental science to provide answers.

Ultimately, "missions-oriented" means that we need to understand the behavior of atoms and molecules in all their various forms.

ES News: Do you think the Department's research structure makes it difficult to communicate the kinds of research it sponsors?

Millman: Yes. For example, the professional societies are very interested in how much funding a Federal agency provides for their scientific discipline, but when they look at the DOE's public databases it's difficult for them to find out what the Department is funding in specific areas. The DOE wants to solve energy-related problems, and those problems require the involvement of more than one scientific discipline within a project. So I'd like to see us work more proactively with the societies to help them obtain the information that they need.

ES News: What other challenges do you see that may be preventing us from getting the word out to the scientific community?

Millman: There's a perception that whatever is going on within the DOE is closed to "outsiders;" that DOE stakeholders form an old boys club. I know about that perception because people have asked me about it; and I've felt all the way from surprise to annoyance. It's incumbent upon us to overcome that perception and to communicate to people that we are open to good new ideas, that we're interested in supporting the best ideas at the forefront of science, with the proviso that it broadly supports the mission.

We don't usually solicit proposals but we do accept unsolicited proposals. And, although there's a perception that we aren't open to new ideas, the fact is we fund in the neighborhood of 18% to 25% of the unsolicited new proposals sent to us. That percentage is essentially identical to the other funding agencies.

ES News: What are some of the challenges in managing multidisciplinary research groups?

Millman: We have to accommodate the many views of different research communities; and each scientific community conducts its research a little differently. At the same time, the mechanisms exist for the communities to interact with one another. One of the things I found fascinating about planning how to allocate the Division's resources was that by bringing scientists from diverse communities together, they were better able to consider complex questions than would be possible by any single scientific community alone. One discipline's forefront science is the foundation for the next discipline. Taken together, there is a continuum of fundamental questions that defines the whole of science.

ES News: Could you give us some specific examples of the types of research supported by your Division?

Millman: The chemistry of the transuranic elements is a good example. In the early days, this research was critical to the Department's mission to produce nuclear weapons. Today, understanding this chemistry is fundamental to our ability to clean up the environment from having manufactured those weapons. Some of the questions are "How can we clean up these materials if we don't understand the chemistry?" "How can we manage the quantities and diversity of these materials if we don't have a thorough understanding of their interactions with one another and with their environment?" "How are we going to develop the chemical engineering and process design work without that knowledge?" [See "An Uncommon Sensor" in this issue for an example of technology supporting this research.]

We support research in photochemistry and in photosynthesis. In photochemistry, we study how electrons move in molecules, and how they stay apart long enough to allow reactions to occur. In the biosciences, we study the process of photosynthesis to answer the same sorts of questions but studied from the point of view of natural systems. In radiation chemistry, we are looking at the effects of ionizing radiation on molecules. Also, the Division has the largest program in the government that focuses on catalysis, the process of causing a chemical reaction that requires less energy. Similarly, we support a Chemical Physics program with a major emphasis on combustion to reduce the quantity of pollutants and increase the energy efficiency of fuels.

ES News: Are most of these projects located within the DOE's national labs?

Millman:While the largest share of the Office of Science's budget goes to the labs, there is significant funding in the nearly 2000 awards that are made to Universities and other institutions. Within the Office of Science, the Office of Basic Energy Sciences accounts for nearly half of those non-laboratory awards and 40% of the research funding. The difference between laboratory and university projects is that the lab projects are mostly multidisciplinary and the research conducted at universities is mostly single-investigator initiated and more discipline oriented, but not always.

ES News: What are some of the multidisciplinary projects?

Millman: There is a good example of a multidisciplinary project at the Notre Dame Radiation Laboratory. This laboratory is located on the Notre Dame campus but owned by the Department. The research is focused on understanding the interaction of radiation with matter, mostly in solution. The scientists doing the research represent various areas of chemistry—physical, organic, and inorganic.

Early accelerator at Notre Dame's Rad Lab

Another intra-disciplinary project is the Michigan State University-DOE Plant Research Laboratory where the principal focus is on biology. The Plant Research Lab receives funding not only from our Biosciences program, but also from the Department of Agriculture, the State of Michigan, and others. That research is focused on biological molecules and adds to our knowledge of alternative energy sources and all the biological processes associated with them.

DOE Plant Research Lab at Michigan State University
DOE Plant Research Laboratory at Michigan State University (east and west wings of sand-colored building in foreground)

The Combustion Research Facility (CRF), which is part of the Sandia National Laboratory in Livermore, California, is another multidiscipline laboratory. Here, research spans the range from studies on individual molecules and how they react at high temperatures, to diagnostic probes of flame species and to fluid dynamic engineering models of flame structure. The goal of these studies is to predict the combustion process completely: its efficiency, the reactions that produce pollutants, and ultimately how to improve the combustion process. Mathematicians, physicists, chemists, computer scientists, and engineers work together as teams.

CRF Industrial Research

The Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, deals with the environmental legacy of the cold war. Chemistry occurring in the environment takes place at the surfaces of minerals and usually in the presence of water. Very little is known about this chemistry at the molecular level. Our program, both in chemistry and in geochemistry, is beginning to contribute detailed fundamental molecular knowledge to predict the fate and effects of chemicals released into the environment. The EMSL, like our other national user facilities, is open to qualified scientists who have their own research programs in these areas.

William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory
William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory
DOE User Facility

ES News: In total, it seems both challenging and greatly rewarding to manage research in this way. Thanks very much for sharing your perspective.

Related Information:

Office of Basic Energy Sciences

Organization and History of the Notre Dame Radiation Laboratory

Michigan State University DOE Plant Research Laboratory

Combustion Research Laboratory

William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory Web Tour

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