The Physical Sciences and Engineering (PSE) Employees of the Month program recognizes two individuals each month—one programmatic and one operations—based on the excellence of their work and demonstration of Argonne’s Core Values: Impact, Safety, Respect, Integrity and Teamwork.

March 2020 PSE Employee of the Month – operations category

• Cathy Beles, from PSE’s Materials Science Division (MSD), demonstrated her commitment to her role as Systems Administrator by successfully migrating the MSD Windows environment to Windows 10 without interruption, a crucial task to enable MSD scientists to continue their research seamlessly. Over the course of a year, Beles met with each scientist that would be impacted by the upgrade. Her customer-oriented approach and drive to accomplish her goals are testaments to her continued display of Argonne’s Core Values.

March 2020 PSE Employee of the Month – programmatic category

• In the past year, Guiliang Xu, from PSE’s Chemical Sciences and Engineering (CSE) division has simultaneously carried out two Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) projects related to lithium/sulfur and sodium-ion batteries. Additionally, he took the lead in communication for an existing project with Argonne and NASA, which led to a new collaboration between NASA and DOE. In 2019, Xu published a total of 13 papers in high-impact journals, was awarded a patent for sodium-ion batteries and filed two patent applications. Xu displays continued excellence in his work, especially demonstrating Argonne’s Core Values of Impact and Teamwork.

Each month, the PSE Associate Laboratory Director and Division Directors review PSE Employee of the Month nominations and select recipients. All Argonne employees are eligible for nomination, including people within PSE and those who work with PSE. All PSE staff, postdocs and students are welcome to submit nominations. The call for nominations opens on the first of each month.