Project Management
The FIRST Center management structure, outlined in our organizational chart, refined and proven in the current funding period, has been designed to accomplish the scientific goals of the Center, while providing synergy among the thrusts and cross-cut efforts, oversight, and operational support. The Director is responsible for the overall scientific direction and management of the Center, including setting scientific priorities, monitoring progress, allocating resources and manpower, managing intellectual property, reviewing and approving manuscripts, ensuring compliance with environmental, health and safety regulations, reporting to the Department of Energy (DOE) and external communication of our major results.
The Director is accountable to the Associate Laboratory Director (ALD) for Physical Sciences and BES Program Managers at ORNL. The Deputy Director (DD) will work closely with the Director, Thrust Leaders (TLs) and Cross-Cut Theme Leader (CL) to facilitate synergistic efforts across the Center and represent the Director when needed. The TLs and CL report to the Director and will be responsible for setting scientific priorities and ensuring integration of the Thrusts, as well as managing the daily activities of their specific thrust, which includes monitoring progress, managing resources, and reporting results to the Director. Thrust Leaders will ensure that research highlights are captured and reported, manuscripts are reviewed, and postdoc and students are mentored, and will also ensure timely internal and external communication of progress and problems. This integrative approach intrinsically provides mentorship for future scientific leaders, establishes important networks with influential scientists, and organically establishes a succession plan for the research developed by FIRST. The CL will report to the Director and will be responsible for working with the TLs to utilize expertise, resources and insights gained from the research Thrusts to achieve the goals of the theme and the overall Center mission. Questions derived from this research will feedback to Thrust I and II.
An External Advisory Board (EAB) composed of science and technology experts from academia and national labs will assess the scientific direction, progress toward our goals, and the quality of the scientific program. Members of this board were chosen specifically for their expertise in closely related scientific fields. An Operational Support group based in the ORNL Chemical Sciences Division (CSD), reports to the Director and supports Procurement, Finance, Environmental, Safety, Health and Quality (ESH&Q), Education and Outreach, Human Resources, and Technology Transfer. The Steering Committee (SC), composed of the Director (Dai), Deputy Director (Wesolowski), the Chemical Sciences Division Director (Britt), Thrust Leaders (Cummings and Balke), Cross-Cutting Theme Coordinator (Gogotsi), and Veronica Augustyn (North Carolina State University) will ensure timely progress in achieving our Mission and complying with DOE requirements and requests.
Dai receives ACS, IMMA awards 
Ray Unocic a staff scientist at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, received IMC 19 best presentation award.
Prof. Micaheel Naguib (FIRST Center PI at Tulane University) received the very prestigious 2018 Kroto Award.
Professor Yury Gogotsi (Drexel University) has been invited to deliver the Fred Kavli Distinguished Lecture on Nanoscience at the Spring, 2014 Materials Research Society Meeting in San Francisco, April 21-25, 2014.