Research Focus Areas

Have you ever questioned why tornadoes are disproportionately deadly in the Southeast? Or how to continually improve monitoring and prediction of climate change? If so, then you’re asking the questions our experts at NOAA’s Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division (ATDD) are actively seeking answers to in their research.

ORAU supports NOAA’s ATDD focus on air quality and climate-related research, including lower atmosphere research in the areas of air quality, contaminant dispersion, and climate. ATDD also manages and operates the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) to accurately estimate continental U.S. trends in temperature and precipitation in rural environmental settings expected to remain stable for many decades.

ATDD frequently hosts graduate and undergraduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and U.S. and international visiting scientists, who collaborate with scientists at other NOAA laboratories, government agencies, universities, and private organizations. Research stations are located Oak Ridge National Laboratory Walker Branch Watershed forested experimental area and at the Chestnut Ridge Environmental Study site. On-site facilities include a wind tunnel laboratory, machine shop, electronics laboratory, and chemical instruments laboratory.

Research focus areas

• Identify additional research uses of climate date generated by USCRN that offer long-term, high quality observations of air temperature, precipitation, and soil moisture and temperature
• Develop better methods for predicting transport and dispersion of air pollutants
• Improve modeling of air-surface exchange of water, energy, and carbon, so that their effect(s) on climate may be better understood
• Developing techniques for analyzing and interpreting data collected during atmospheric studies
• Interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary research that leverages atmospheric studies

From epidemiology and exposure health studies to organizational culture evaluations—ORAU's worker health research focuses on workplace hazards and the occupational health and safety of workers. The foundation of our expertise stems from more than 50 years of collecting, managing, and analyzing occupational data on current and former workers—many of whom supported U.S. Department of Energy missions that date back to the Manhattan Project (WWII 1940s).

If you are interested in conducting research that involves the study of worker populations and workplace exposures, we can match you with our worker health and epidemiology experts for a deeper dive into research that aims to answer important questions about how exposures or other factors contribute to the development of diseases, including cancer.

Research focus areas

• Epidemiology/exposure risk assessments
• Safety culture assessments
• Organizational culture assessments
• Impact of opioid abuse on the workforce

At the heart of almost every health communication campaign is research that helps communities better understand how to encourage their residents to invest in their family's health and wellness. In partnerships with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Library of Medicine, and communities around the world, ORAU's health communication researchers seek to improve health communication by developing, pilot testing, implementing, and evaluating innovative communication and social marketing campaigns using the latest technologies.

Linking with ORAU experts and researchers within our university consortium, opportunities exist for research collaborations that can determine how to best inform the public and equip health professionals with knowledge of emerging public health challenges. These partnerships foster opportunities for research collaborations in community health settings that support important research needs across academia, industry, and government.

Research focus areas

• Virtual reality/eye-tracking technology to assess communication efficacy
• Use of new technology for communications
• Impacts of vaccination schedule changes
• Development of technology-based learning tools

ORAU is a national leader in decommissioning health physics, supporting nuclear decommissioning of cleanup for the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Our staff of highly-skilled health physicists and radiation safety experts have performed environmental assessments for federal and state agencies for more than 40 years, greatly enhancing public trust and instilling confidence in the decommissioning of contaminated sites.

Our research focus in this area welcomes collaborators from the wider health physics and decommissioning community who wish to partner with ORAU researchers for data analysis and other research related to radiological and chemical site cleanup. Specifically, we seek to engage in collaborative research projects that contribute to advancements in radiological characterization and environmental cleanup activities.

Research focus areas 

• Radiation detection/instrumentation supporting MARSSIM survey techniques
• Environmental survey applications of subsurface soil
• Environmental modeling
• Field detection of non-radiological contaminants (chemicals), including expanding technical support to contaminants such as PCBs, mercury, and lead
• Integration of advanced instrumentation in final radiation surveys
• Statistics related to environmental contaminant distributions, including Bayesian approach for evaluating the acceptability of radiological and non-radiological hot spots
• Integrating surveying and sampling methodologies to improve characterization and independent verification surveys (high-resolution spatial mapping, and conventional sampling)

When a federal, state, or private research funding organization disseminates scientific information or awards grants, it is critical that the proposed information be scientifically feasible and have verifiable technical merit. ORAU manages scientific peer reviews that provide critical, independent assessment of research proposals and program performance to help sponsors determine the quality of research proposals and accuracy of scientific information.

The peer review process involves selecting experts in the same field as the proposals to evaluate, comment, and score proposals based on their knowledge of the subject and understanding of the impact each proposal would make if funded. Focusing on continuing process improvement, research collaborations exist to evaluate the entire peer review process—from planning and reviewer identification to evaluating proposals and implementing improvements. Gaining a better understanding of what motivates reviewer participation can bring insight and greater credibility to peer reviews and program evaluations.

Research focus areas

• Literature review of the peer review process to assess norms for rates of invites/participation, honoraria, etc., to identify gaps and/or problems in the field.
• Create reviewer typologies of the characteristics and motivations of different types of reviewers in order to aid reviewer identification and recruitment for different types of projects.
• Evaluate the process of conducting a review from the perspective of the reviewer.
  • What are the steps?
  • How long does each step take?
  • What are the barriers to participation?
  • What slows things down?
  • What does or doesn’t add value to the process?
• Assess participation in ORAU reviews to identify incentives/barriers to participation, characteristics of repeat reviewers, patterns in reviewer characteristics across different review types and domains, the value of participation to the reviewer, etc.
• Research the effects of “repeat reviewers” on scores.

As a growing number of our nation’s current scientific minds edge closer to retirement, workforce studies, and labor trends show a critical need to replace workers with those who are able to compete in the global science, technical, and research fields. To address these needs, ORAU partners with government agencies and private industry to connect the best and most diverse students, recent graduates, and professionals with world-class fellowships, internships, and jobs in research institutions, federal government offices, and private sector R&D departments.

Research partnerships exist in the areas of STEM workforce assessment and evaluation. Our experts conduct comprehensive formative, summative, and annual evaluations for STEM-related programs. ORAU’s evaluators and education specialists also perform long-term, follow-up impact evaluations of STEM workforce programs.

Research focus areas

• Estimating future hiring needs and adequacy of supply of new graduates in STEM occupations
• Applied research on specialized STEM labor markets
• Measuring national and regional impacts of workforce programs by establishing comparison groups from large national surveys of the U.S. STEM workforce
• Program/project survey instrument development and validation
• Undergraduate research experiences
• Economic impact of science enterprise
• Human capital and workforce modeling
• Research on the use of classroom technologies and technology training for teachers