SRNL's George Wicks Honored by Ceramic Engineers
Submitted by: Angeline French on Oct 19, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Tagged with: Ceramics, Glass
Source: Savannah River National Laboratory
AIKEN, S.C. (Oct. 19, 2010) – Dr. George Wicks of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory is the 2010 winner of the Arthur Frederick Greaves-Walker Award from the American Ceramic Society’s (ACerS) National Institute of Ceramic Engineers. The award is named for a founding member and the first president of National Institute of Ceramic Engineers (NICE), which is part of ACerS. It is presented to an individual who has rendered outstanding service to the ceramic engineering profession and who, by life and career, has exemplified the aims, ideals and purpose of NICE.
The award was presented Oct. 18 at the 112th ACerS Annual Meeting, held in conjunction with the Materials Science & Technology Conference, in Houston, Texas.
Dr. Wicks is recognized for many years of service in the scientific advancement of ceramics and glass technology, including the conversion of high-level radioactive waste to a glass form. Much of his work has gone into making the Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility a reality – the DWPF has now been successfully operating for more than 12 years to safely and effectively immobilize the Site’s inventory of liquid waste. He also designed and co-organized the largest international field testing program in the world on simulated high-level waste glasses and has been asked to serve on numerous advisory panels and committees both in the U.S. and in other countries, on many different aspects of the high-level waste vitrification program and associated efforts. In recent years, Dr. Wicks has led an interdisciplinary team in developing and patenting a new product called Porous Wall Hollow Glass Microspheres, tiny “microballoons” about 1/3 the diameter of a human hair, with unique capabilities for potential use in targeted drug delivery, hydrogen storage and other uses.
His work has resulted in 14 patents to date (with more in progress), and more than 200 external publications, including authoring or co-authoring four books and eight invited chapters in textbooks and encyclopedias. Earlier this year, Dr. Wicks received the South Carolina Governor’s Award for Excellence in Scientific Research.
This year, he becomes the president-elect of the American Ceramic Society and is scheduled to serve as president of the 9,000-plus-member organization in 2011-2012. This will mark the third time that ACerS has been led by someone from SRNL; Dr. Carol Jantzen and Dr. John Marra have also held the post of ACerS president. Dr. Wicks has also served as chair of ACerS Nuclear and Environmental division, president of NICE (a class within ACerS), and a member of the ACerS Board of Directors. He is a Fellow of both ACerS and NICE and serves as an associate editor of the Society’s International Journal of Applied Glass Science.
SRNL Director Dr. Terry Michalske said, “I’m proud of the extremely talented and dedicated staff at Savannah River National Laboratory whose contributions to important national missions have earned recognition from their peers. Dr. Wicks is a tremendous leader and an asset to the Department of Energy's Environmental Management mission.”
SRNL is DOE’s applied research and development national laboratory at SRS. SRNL puts science to work to support DOE and the nation in the areas of environmental management, national and homeland security, and energy security. The management and operating contractor for SRS and SRNL is Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC.
SRNS-2010-72