The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has received a prestigious Materials Research Science and Engineering Center from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to spark discoveries that will lead to new industries in clean energy, computing and national security.

John Z. Larese, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT), Shull Wollan Center Research Affiliate, and an outstanding member of the neutron scattering community for several decades, passed away Sunday, November 21. He was 67 years old.

Neutron scattering grew from the nuclear science of the Manhattan Project during the 1940s at what is now Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

The Spallation Neutron Source marks a decade as a leading neutron science facility today at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The SNS’s combination of linear accelerator and accumulator ring sent its first protons to its one-of-a-kind mercury target in April 2006, beginning a process of commissioning instruments to take advantage of its unprecedented abundance of pulsed neutrons for research.

The Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences is now the Shull Wollan Center—A Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences, named in honor of two esteemed physicists and pioneers in neutron scattering, Clifford Shull and Ernest Wollan.