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Our researchers within National Security at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) focus on delivering high-impact, science-based, practical solutions to our clients to prevent and counter acts of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Our world-leading capabilities cross-cut market needs and one of our major strengths is our ability to integrate our research and projects across PNNL and take them to market. We are committed to providing excellent service to our clients to help make our world safe and more secure.
News Highlights
PNNL assists in Sandy recovery
When Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, flooding and high winds at the Port of New York/New Jersey shut down the terminals and brought trade and transportation to a standstill. Customs and Border Protection and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) reached out to PNNL Radiation Portal Monitor Project staff to assist with the damage assessment and recovery efforts. PNNL’s team worked long hours to identify interim solutions to bring port scanning operations back online and to develop longer-term plans to permanently restore, replace or rebuild the radiation portal monitor systems and supporting infrastructure.
Website provides software engineering resources
The new Software Systems Engineering Process (SSEP) website provides best practices, tips, examples, and lessons learned that can be applied throughout the software life cycle. The website provides information for both traditional and agile software engineering. The SSEP emphasizes defining a common set of software engineering processes and practices that improve our ability to manage risk, uncertainty, develop innovative solutions to meet customer needs. SSEP can lead to project success with well-understood project scope and requirements, better estimates of development time and cost, the ability to adapt the system to requirements and technology changes over time, effective team communication, and effective project oversight.
Canopy: Making sense of data
PNNL has developed Canopy, a visual analytic software tool, to help decision makers make sense of massive amounts of data to identify threats and take action. Canopy incorporates cutting-edge extraction techniques, computer vision algorithms, text analysis and interactive visualizations allowing intelligence analysts to quickly explore and comprehend connections within large amounts of data in multiple formats including video, image and text.
Kudos: Steve Stein
PNNL is part of a consortium preparing a proposal for the Federal Aviation Administration. In a recent letter to Laboratory Director Mike Kluse, Director of the State of Washington's Governor's Office of Aerospace, Alex Pietsch, stated: "I am grateful for the assistance of Steve Stein and his colleagues at PNNL… Frankly, it is difficult to imagine where we would be if Steve had not stepped up from the very beginning to help organize our collective efforts."
PNNL staff in Wired magazine
Battelle's effort to design and implement a new safe confinement to cover the damaged Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine appears in December's Wired (UK) magazine. The article "Containing Chernobyl" features several PNNL staff assigned to the project, including Eric Schmieman, Michael Smith, and Don Kelly.
Kudos: Mikey Brady Raap
Mikey Brady Raap was appointed a member of the DOE Criticality Safety Support Group, which supports the DOE Nuclear Criticality Safety Program. Members provide operational and technical expertise involving experiments, nuclear data, methods, training, organizational structures, and criticality safety evaluations. Mikey was selected for her 25 years of exceptional experience and knowledge in criticality safety and nuclear engineering.
Kudos: Jim Spracklen
Jim Spracklen coordinated the response of eight volunteers from the HAMMER facility, PNNL and DOE to respond to Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. He was sent to Washington DC as an energy specialist to help organize and prioritize resources.
Gracio, Gorton publish new book
Deborah Gracio and Ian Gorton are co-editors of a new book, Data-Intensive Computing, Architectures, Algorithms, and Applications, released in November by Cambridge University Press and available on Amazon.com.
Kudos: George Muller
George Muller presented the outcome of a CSA Division Innovations project on infrastructure resilience at the Complex Adaptive Systems Conference, held November 14-16 in Washington, DC. The conference focuses on cyber security, big data analytics, and complex systems from healthcare to infrastructure.
Disaster Preparedness articles published
Ann Lesperance, Jessica Sandusky and Steve Stein authored "All Disaster Recovery Planning is Local – How Grassroots Efforts Can Inform Federal Disaster Recovery "The invited article was published in the April/September issue of Defense Standardization Program Journal. Ann also authored "Addressing Key Policy Issues Before the Next Catastrophe," published in the October 2012 issue of DomPrep Journal, Medical Emergencies edition.
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