ORINS assumed responsibility for the national administration of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)-sponsored predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowship programs. There were 326 predoctoral fellows and 41 postdoctoral fellows appointed by the Fellowship Board. In recent years, the organization has placed more than 5,000 students and faculty members annually into specialized education programs.

Dr. Fred Snyder (right) and Merle Blank were part of an ORAU research team that discovered the structure of the platelet-activating factor (PAF) in 1979. PAF is a lipid that plays a crucial role in controlling cell growth, cellular differentiation, blood pressure, and reproductive and development processes.

ORAU organized a major U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) conference in Washington, D.C., for representatives from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). Its purpose was to acquaint the representatives with DOE’s mission, research areas, and procedures for submitting proposals.

The Radiation Internal Dose Information Center (RIDIC) celebrated its 25th anniversary by hosting the Sixth International Radiopharmaceutical Dosimetry Symposium. RIDIC also introduced its website, from which researchers and physicians could download compendia of dosimetry data via file transfer protocol (FTP), and staff continued to maintain a listserv called DOSE-NET that has fostered a new collaboration among the nuclear medicine community worldwide.

ORAU sponsored the first-ever ORAU Extreme Classroom Makeover, which provided $25,000 in classroom and technology improvements to Jenny Alvey, a sixth grade science teacher at Gresham Middle School in Knoxville.

In the wake of the Japan earthquake and tsunami disaster that affected the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, ORAU developed Exercise Builder Nuclear, the first Web-based application designed to help nuclear power producers conduct more comprehensive emergency preparedness drills and exercises.

ORAU partnered with the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) to promote opioid abuse awareness through better communication and social media. ORAU also completed research exploring communication needs related to prescription opioids and produced a comprehensive report titled “Communicating about Opioids in Appalachia: Best Practices, Challenges, and Opportunities.”

During FY19, ORAU facilitated workforce development for a wide range of participants: 9,819 interns, fellows and other participants were recruited from 50 states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and 97 foreign countries.

Educators around the country had to make a huge pivot from classroom to virtual learning environments when COVID-19 pandemic protection measures closed schools. ORAU’s K-12 STEM team followed suit by converting their teacher professional development programs from in-person to virtual. The results was 330 teachers from 25 states and Canada participating in these workshops.

NASA selected ORAU to provide the agency with administrative support and coordination of research opportunities between NASA’s mission directorates and centers across the agency. The NASA Postdoctoral Program 2 contract is a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract with a maximum potential value of approximately $129.7 million, according to a NASA news release. The one-year base performance period began on Sept. 9, and is followed by four one-year options, which would end on Sept. 8, 2026.

In 2022, ORAU continued to deliver exceptional performance for our NIOSH customer, which awarded us two perfect scores (100) for our management of this contract that reconstructs radiation doses for current and former DOE workers in the nuclear industry. Since starting work on the original contract in 2002, ORAU and its partners have assisted NIOSH in completing and submitting more than 66,000 dose assessments (preliminary and revised) for NIOSH review.