The National Academy of Engineering has named two scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to this year’s class of 128 new members and 22 international members. 

Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions in engineering practice, research, or education, as well as in pioneering new and developing fields of technology, major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing innovative approaches to engineering education. 

Kristin Persson, a senior staff scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division, the Daniel M. Tellep Distinguished Professor of materials science and engineering at UC Berkeley, and Director of the Materials Project, was elected for pioneering data-driven materials design through the creation and stewardship of open materials databases and associated data-mining algorithms.

Persson specializes in studying the physics and chemistry of materials using high-performance computing technology and is the founder and director of the Materials Project, a multinational initiative. Under her leadership since 2011, the Materials Project has become the world’s most widely used open-access repository of information on inorganic materials, serving over 500,000 users worldwide. Her research focuses on the computational design of new materials, particularly for sustainable energy production and storage applications. Persson has published hundreds of scientific papers and was named a highly cited researcher by Web of Science four years in a row.

Margaret Torn, a senior scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, was elected for contributions including the understanding of soil carbon dynamics.

Torn is an ecologist and biogeochemist whose research uses field experiments, isotopes, and mathematical models to study the natural carbon cycle. She has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles on a range of subjects, including soil carbon cycling and climate-ecosystem interactions. Torn leads the AmeriFlux Management Project, which was established by DOE at Berkeley Lab to provide the broad community of researchers engaged in research at AmeriFlux Network sites. AmeriFlux was established to connect research on field sites representing major climate and ecological biomes, including tundra, grasslands, savanna, crops, and conifer, deciduous, and tropical forests. Torn also leads the Belowground Biogeochemistry Science Focus Area at Berkeley Lab, whose researchers study soil processes that affect plant growth, microbial dynamics, and hydrological and thermal dynamics in order to improve predictive models.

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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to groundbreaking research focused on discovery science and solutions for abundant and reliable energy supplies. The lab’s expertise spans materials, chemistry, physics, biology, earth and environmental science, mathematics, and computing. Researchers from around the world rely on the lab’s world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 16 Nobel Prizes. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.