Project Management
Organizational Structure, Roles, and Responsibilities: The FIRST Center management structure, outlined in our organizational chart, has been designed to accomplish the scientific goals of the Center, while providing synergy between the thrusts, educational outreach, oversight, operational support, and integration with DOE's core science and technology programs. The Director (Sheng Dai) is responsible for the overall scientific direction and management of the Center, including setting scientific priorities, monitoring progress, allocating resources, reporting to BES, and ensuring compliance with environmental, health and safety regulations. He also reviews and approves the release of all publications, presentations, web postings and media articles. The Deputy Director (David J. Wesolowski) represents the Director in his absence. The Director is accountable to ORNL's BES Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences (CSGB) Program Manager (Britt, who is also the Chemical Sciences Division Director) and the Associate Laboratory Director (ALD) for Physical Sciences (Buchanan) and the DOE Program Managers. The Thrust Leaders (Peter T. Cummings, Sheng Dai, Steven H. Overbury) report to the Director and are responsible for managing the daily activities of their specific thrusts, which includes setting scientific priorities, monitoring progress and managing resources. The Thrust Leaders, together with the Director and ORNL CSGB Program Manager, constitute the Steering Committee (SC), which is responsible for integrating and coordinating research activities across the thrusts, and is the strategic decision-making body of the Center. An External Advisory Board (EAB), composed of science and technology experts from academia and industry, assess the scientific direction and progress of the Center and the Thrusts, and the quality of the scientific program. An Operational Support group based primarily in the ORNL Chemical Sciences Division provides support for Procurement, Finance, Environmental, Health, Safety and Quality (ESH&Q), Education and Outreach, Human Resources, and Technology Transfer.
Professor Joel Rosenthal (University of Delaware) has received a 
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.
Thrust 1 Leader Peter Cummings (Vanderbilt) received the 
FIRST postdoc Jennifer Black (ORNL) received the Young Investigator Gold Medal at the 2013 International Conference on Advanced Capacitors, Osaka, Japan, May 27-30, 2013
Former FIRST postdoc Guang Feng (Vanderbilt) won the 2013 Hundred Talents prize (including 500,000 RMB) from Hubei Province, China, and will assume a full professorship at Huazhong University of Science & Technology in 2014
FIRST postdoc Jake McDonough (Drexel) won the 1st place poster award at the Electrochemical Society Meeting, San Francisco, Oct. 27-Nov. 1, 2013
Ph.D. student Katie Van Aken (Drexel) won the Best Poster Award at the Materials Research Society Spring Meeting, San Francisco, CA, April 1-5, 2013.