Elena Tajuelo Rodriguez, an R&D staff member in the Nuclear Structures and Construction group at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been recognized with the Mary Jane Oestmann Professional Women’s Achievement Award. The award will be presented to her during the opening plenary session of the ANS 2024 Winter Conference.

This designation is awarded to individuals who have outstanding personal dedication and technical achievement by a woman for work she has performed in the fields of nuclear science, engineering, research or education. The award was established in 1988 and was named after Dr. Mary Jane Oestmann, recognized research chemist and American Nuclear Society Fellow. 

Tajuelo Rodriguez is being specifically recognized for her pioneering research on irradiation effects in nuclear concrete materials to advance scientific knowledge and her dedication to mentoring and inspiring women in nuclear engineering.

Tajuelo Rodriguez came to ORNL as a postdoctoral associate and joined the lab as an R&D associate staff member in 2018. She was promoted to R&D staff member in 2022. As a physicist and experimentalist with a focus on materials science, she investigates the effects of irradiation on concrete components. She has participated in an extensive network of collaborations and projects with universities, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and DOE’s Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program. 

She holds a bachelor’s in physics from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, a master’s in materials physics and nanotechnology from Linkopings Universitet and a doctorate in materials science from the University of Leeds.

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

This Oak Ridge National Laboratory news article "Tajuelo Rodriguez receives Mary Jane Oestmann award by American Nuclear Society" was originally found on https://www.ornl.gov/news