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Title: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)--Surface Biogeochemical Research (SBR) 6th Annual PI Meeting: Abstracts

Conference ·
OSTI ID:1013070

On behalf of the Subsurface Biogeochemical Research (SBR) program managers in the Climate and Environmental Sciences Division (CESD), Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER), welcome to the 2011 SBR Principal Investigators meeting. Thank you in advance for your attendance and your presentations at this year's meeting. As the events in Japan continue to unfold, we are all reminded that the research we perform on radionuclide behavior in the environment has implications beyond legacy waste cleanup and in fact has its place in the discussion on the expanded use of nuclear power. As in the past, there are three broad objectives to the Principal Investigators meeting: (1) to provide opportunities to share research results and promote interactions among the SBR scientists and other invited guests; (2) to evaluate the progress of each project within the program; and (3) to showcase the scientific expertise and research progress over the past year to senior managers within the DOE Office of Science, the technology offices within DOE, and other invited attendees from other Federal Agencies. This past year has seen a few significant changes within BER and within the SBR program. In November, our Associate Director for BER, Anna Palmisano, retired from Federal service. Just this month, Dr. Sharlene Weatherwax (Division Director for Biological Systems Sciences) has been named as the new Associate Director for BER. In August, BER welcomed Dr. Gary Geernaert as the new Division Director for CESD. Gary joins the division from Los Alamos National Laboratory with a background in atmospheric science. Within the SBR program, a new Strategic Plan was completed last June (currently posted on the SBR and the Office of Science website). The new strategic plan is intended to foster integration within the Environmental Systems Science portion of the BER budget that includes both SBR and Terrestrial Ecosystem Sciences (TES). Both these programs share a goal of advancing a predictive understanding of environmental processes and utilizing iterative, multidisciplinary approaches to understand complex environmental systems of relevance to DOE. CESD in general is undergoing continued discussions on integration among its programs in an effort to develop a new strategic plan for the division. This effort also includes identifying opportunities for integration with BER's Biological Systems Science Division (BSSD). The program this year includes three poster presentation sessions, six plenary sessions, and three breakout sessions. The plenary session on Tuesday morning will feature introductory presentations by BER program staff and three keynote addresses from Dr. Ken Bencala (USGS), Dr. Michael (Mick) Follows (MIT) and Dr. Sue Brantley (PSU) that will lead into three breakout sessions Tuesday afternoon. The breakout sessions are intended to highlight key developments in SBR research and foster a dialog among session participants on scientific paths forward in each particular area. The SBR program managers are asking for input from the SBR community at these sessions to help guide future efforts and/or identify areas of integration within BER programs. On Wednesday, plenary sessions will continue in the morning, followed by an early afternoon poster session. After an extended break for lunch, plenary sessions will continue in the afternoon, followed by an evening poster session. Thursday's plenary session will focus on selected highlights of research efforts at the IFRC sites and on a new potential TES field effort in the Arctic. This new field site is an obvious point of integration between the SBR and TES programs.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
Earth Sciences Division
DOE Contract Number:
DE-AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1013070
Report Number(s):
LBNL-43E-2011; TRN: US201110%%433
Resource Relation:
Conference: DOE-SBR 6th Annual PI Meeting, Washington, D.C., April 26-28, 2011
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English