Thomas Lecture
ORNL official Dr. Benjamin Thomas to speak on Friday
JOHNSON CITY – Dr. Benjamin Thomas, director of Technology Partnerships within the National Security Directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will speak at East Tennessee State University on Friday, April 24, at 3 p.m. in room 305 of Gilbreath Hall.
The talk is co-sponsored by a grant from the National Science Foundation and by the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at ETSU. According to Dr. Ariel Cintron-Arias, assistant professor in the department, “This presentation will provide an overview of activities at ORNL related to understanding climate impacts on critical infrastructure security and resilience.”
Thomas will also discuss ORNL’s involvement in university partnerships and STEM education research programs.
The United States experienced an unusual number of climate-related extreme events between 2011 and 2013, including severe storms, droughts, floods, winter tornadoes and wildfires. For these reasons, improving the ability to project future exposures to extreme weather events and disruptions to critical infrastructures has become a national priority.
Thomas has over 30 years of experience in managing and executing scientific and technical assignments for a number of federal agencies. He holds a Ph.D. in management science from the University of Tennessee.
The public is invited to attend. For more information about the talk, contact Cintron-Arias at cintronarias@etsu.edu or 423-439-4676. For disability accommodations, call the ETSU Office of Disability Services at 423-439-8346.