Los Alamos National Laboratory

Stay updated on award news from Los Alamos National Laboratory, highlighting employer excellence, American Chemical Society awards, and APS fellowships.

Los Alamos National Laboratory’s 2026 Back to School Drive made a meaningful difference for 2,000 elementary and middle school students across Northern New Mexico. Donations totaled $46,582, helping expand support for local children and families facing financial challenges as school begins.

Los Alamos National Laboratory recently conducted a full-scale emergency exercise to practice its wildland fire response capabilities, bringing together multiple teams across the site as well as external response partners to simulate a wildfire threatening Laboratory facilities.

Research scientist Sangeeta Negi has been named Los Alamos National Laboratory’s 2026 Battelle Inventor of the Year for her work developing a biological solution aimed at improving crop growth and agricultural productivity. Battelle manages eight national laboratories across the U.S. The Battelle Inventor of the Year Award recognizes a researcher at each of these labs whose inventions demonstrate exceptional creativity, scientific impact and success in moving technologies beyond their laboratory.

The National Postdoctoral Association recently named Los Alamos National Laboratory as one of 12 institutions demonstrating exemplary commitment to advancing the postdoctoral experience as part of its first-annual Institutional Policy Awards. A postdoctoral scholar, or “postdoc,” is an individual holding a doctoral degree who is engaged in a temporary period of mentored research to acquire the professional skills needed to pursue a career path of their choosing.

Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have demonstrated a new quantum-dot mechanism that could significantly expand the reach of light-driven chemistry. By introducing magnetic manganese dopants into semiconductor quantum dots, the team created an ultrafast spin-exchange pathway that captures hot-electron energy before it is lost as heat and uses it to drive chemical reduction.

The emerging technology of advanced nuclear microreactors offer solutions to many modern energy challenges. The ZiaCore design, a low-enriched uranium dioxide-fueled microreactor developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory, now joins several developing concepts for fission-based nuclear power microreactors achieving initial criticality.

By Brad Beck and Bob Putnam Each summer, Los Alamos National Laboratory hosts more than 1,800 students and postgraduate interns. In 2026, for the first time, the Plutonium Workforce Development Institutional Partnerships (PWDI) program will pay for more than 30 of those students to come to the Laboratory.

Thanks to the generosity of Laboratory employees, this year's Los Alamos Employees' Scholarship Fund campaign made a substantial contribution toward increasing opportunities for students across Northern New Mexico. The campaign exceeded its goal of 50 new recurring donors, with 58 employees activating new biweekly contributions during the campaign period.

The Autonomous Ion Mass Spectrometer Sentry (AIMSS) team at Los Alamos National Laboratory celebrated the launch of their space flight payload to the International Space Station on May 15. The AIMSS payload was launched as a part of the Department of Defense’s Space Test Program Houston-11 mission onboard SpaceX’s 34th Dragon Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-34) mission.