The Director’s Awards program recognizes significant achievements of Lab employees. Each year, these awards are given for accomplishments, leadership, collaboration, multi-disciplinary science, cross-divisional projects, and commitment to excellence in support of the Lab’s mission and strategic goals. Berkeley Lab employees submit nominations of individuals and teams, which are then reviewed by a Lab-wide Director’s Awards committee.

The NAWI Team which includes Peter Fiske and Carol Valladao of EESA, Jim Hawley of Berkeley Lab Government Relations (second from left above) Purabi Thakre of ETA (above center), Carol Valladao, and Berkeley Lab Counsel Michelle Chew Wong (far right above) were selected for demonstrating deep dedication to working assiduously and creatively to advance clever constructs and to overcome significant bottlenecks associated with developing the proposal and getting the award under contract.

Charu Varadharajan is one of four recipients this year of a Director’s Award honoring the Berkeley Lab scientists’ Early Scientific Careers. Presented in recognition of her exceptional achievements and leadership in the area of data science for earth and environmental science, her contributions have greatly impacted scientific understanding of these systems and influenced collaborations across teams and DOE-BER research directions.

Senior scientist Carl Steefel is being honored for pioneering the development of cutting-edge computational geoscience capabilities, for the discovery of complex hydro-biogeochemical processes that govern behavior of subsurface energy and environmental systems, and for establishing the discipline of reactive transport modeling using open source codes, which has propelled scientific discovery throughout the world.