Shull Fellowship Recipients

2015 - Rana Ashkar

Rana Ashkar is a Neutron Sciences Shull Fellow for 2015. Rana received her PhD in 2012 from Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind. Her thesis was entitled, "Dynamical theory applications to neutron scattering from periodic nanostructures.” She received the Esther L. Kinsley PhD dissertation award and was nominated for the Council of Graduate Schools distinguished dissertation award. Her current work is in developing a science program to investigate curvature-mediated membrane phenomena in topologically nanostructured lipid membranes. The project utilizes the tunability of nanopatterned thermoresponsive polymer scaffolds to generate controllable 2D architectures in supported lipid membranes. The premise of this system is that it enables real-time realization of lateral membrane reorganization and peripheral protein binding in response to local membrane curvature, thus providing insights into critical membrane functions such as signal transduction, cell trafficking, and host-pathogen interactions. In addition, this tunability of membrane topography is envisioned to open new avenues to thermally switchable membrane-based biosensors.

 

 

2015 - Panchao Yin

Panchao Yin is a Neutron Sciences Shull Fellow for 2015. Panchao received his PhD in 2013 from the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio. Panchao is woring to understand the formation mechanism and solution/solid state dynamics of molecular clusters by using neutron scattering and trying to design novel molecular clusters for structural and functionality study. He is also interested in developing self-assembly strategy to build materials from single molecular clusters.

 

 

 

2013 - Mayank Aggarwal

Mayank Aggarwal is the Neutron Sciences Shull Fellow for 2013. Mayank received his PhD in 2013 from the University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla. ​His work focuses on isoform specific drug design targeting human and prokaryotic carbonic anhydrases using neutron diffraction. He is working to understand the underlying bases and features that impart thermostablity to proteins.

 

 

 

 

2011 - Yongqiang Cheng

Yongqiang Cheng is the Neutron Sciences Shull Fellow for 2011. Yongqiang received his PhD in 2010 from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. His thesis was on atomic-level structure and the structure-property relationship in metallic glass. His research interests include computational materials science (classical and quantum, atomistic and continuum), multiscale modeling, and simulation; material characterization using synchrotron x-rays; atomic-level structure and structure-property relationships in complex materials; and structures and processes in materials with storage-related applications.
 
 
 
 
 
2010 - Yang Zhang
The Neutron Sciences Directorate has awarded its 2010 Clifford G. Shull Fellowship to Yang Zhang. Yang comes to ORNL from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he just finished his PhD. in Nuclear Science and Technology in August 2010. Before that he received his BS in Electronic Information Science and Technology at the University of Science and Technology of China in 2004. Yang's current research focuses on the unusual phase behavior of supercooled water in confined geometry, such as nanoporous materials and the vicinities of various biomolecular surfaces. At ORNL, he will expand his interests to investigate the physics of liquids, glasses, and soft condensed matters. A large portion of his work will involve using a combination of neutron scattering experiments at SNS/HFIR and high-performance computer simulations at the ORNL National Center for Computational Sciences.
 
2009 - Xianglin Ke
Xianglin Ke is the 2009 Shull Fellow. Two years ago, he received his PhD in Physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Xianglin seeks to master the neutron scattering technique to explore multiferroic systems, thin-film systems, frustrated magnets, exchange bias, and interfacial coupling in magnetic multilayers.
 
 
 
 
 
 
2008 - Oliver Delaire
Olivier Delaire was appointed a Shull Fellow in 2008. He received his PhD in Materials Science from the California Institute of Technology. His current work involves investigations of the microscopic structure and dynamics of materials for energy applications with neutron scattering and computer simulations.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2007 - Christopher Stanley
Christopher Stanley, National Institute of Standards & Technology and the National Research Council, received his PhD in Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is currently working on protein structure and aggregation related to neurological disorders using small-angle neutron scattering.
 
 
 
 
 
 
2007 - Sylvia McLain
Sylvia McLain received her PhD in Chemistry in 2004 from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. After serving for two and one-half years as a National Science Foundation International Research Fellow at the ISIS Facility in the UK, she was awarded a Shull fellowship in 2007. She is currently working at King's College London in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Her research is focused on the structure and dynamics of small biomolecules, peptides, sugars, and phospholipids in aqueous solution.
 
 
 
 
 
2006 - Andrew Christianson and Wei-Ren Chen
The first two Shull fellowships were awarded in 2006 to Andrew Christianson and Wei-Ren Chen.
Andrew received his PhD in Physics in 2003 from Colorado State University. Recent work includes studies of new superconducting materials and the structure and dynamics of magnetic nanoparticles.
Wei-Ren received his PhD in Nuclear Science and Engineering in 2004 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Recent work includes studies with synthetic molecules and their possible biomedical applications.