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Monday, April 23, 2018

INL honors inventors, achievements in 2017

Idaho National Laboratory held its annual Laboratory Director Awards reception Friday night in Idaho Falls, honoring outstanding research and development accomplishments in support of INL’s mission and highlighting achievements from 2017, including 20 newly issued patents and six copyright assertions.

"2017 was a year of achievement and success at INL, thanks to our dedicated employees," INL Laboratory Director Mark Peters said. "Tonight's ceremony is an opportunity to celebrate those achievements and express our gratitude. Congratulations to this year's winners, and to our entire workforce for what was truly a memorable year. I appreciate everyone's passion and hard work."

Rick Demmer, Harry Rollins and Robert Mariani were inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame at the five-patent level. Douglas Akers and Kevin Gering were inducted at the 10-patent level. 


The 2017 award recipients were:


  • Community Award: Mary Adamic

  • Inclusive Diversity Award: Theron McGriff

  • Leadership Award: Eric Dufek

  • Mission Advancement: Partnership and Collaboration Award: Consequence-driven, Cyber-informed Engineering Team: Curtis St. Michel, Robert Smith, Sarah Freeman, Amanda Belloff, Roya Gordon, Kara Turner, Jeffrey Klingler

  • Mission Enabling Individual Award: Gregory English

  • Mission Enabling Team Award: Advanced Test Reactor Electrical Upgrade Team: Scott Despain, Michael Corbridge, Benjamin England, Russ Howard

  • Laboratory Award for Early Career Exceptional Achievement: Aaron Craft

  • Laboratory Award for Exceptional Engineering Achievement: Craig Rieger

  • Laboratory Award for Exceptional Scientific Achievement: Masashi Shimada

  • Laboratory Award for Individual Lifetime Achievement in Science and Technology: Stephen G. Johnson

  • Inventor of the Year Award: Hussein Moradi

  • Research and Development Technician of the Year Award: James Milloway, Byron White

  • Operations Technician of the Year Award: Jordan Cox, Tiffany Schorzman

  • INL Vision Award: Irradiated Materials Characterization Laboratory Team: Emil Franklin, Aaron Balsmeier, Noel Duckwitz, Jeffery Bailey, Jayson Bush

  • INL Vision Award: No-Idle Motor Coach Team: Ira Pray, Jeffrey Brown, Michael Perez, Bill Ziegler, Colin Letham