28 minute read
Pure Genius
Harley Wilhelm’s secret work for the Manhattan Project launched Ames National Laboratory
Story by Teresa Wilhelm Waldof Illustrations by Jenny Witte
Contributed photos, ISU Special Collections and University Archives
It was Aug. 6, 1945, and President Harry S. Truman had just announced the successful deployment of an atomic weapon over Hiroshima, Japan.
Harley Wilhelm (PhD ‘31 chemistry) picked up the phone and called home. “Orpha,” he said when his wife answered, “Turn on the radio and you’ll know what I’ve been doing the last three and a half years.” It was at this moment Orpha learned her husband, a chemist at Iowa State College, had been involved in the classified work of the Manhattan Project. As the news spread across the Iowa State campus, young chemists who were performing top secret research under Wilhelm’s direction gathered around a radio in the chemistry building. When Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s voice came over the airwaves, they leaned in to listen. The work done at Iowa State was so secret even they didn’t know for certain what their efforts had been used to create. Stimson provided background on the discovery of fission and detailed how the project had gotten underway in early 1942. It had been an enormous undertaking and a successful collaboration of efforts between government, industry, and academia—one that was unmatched in scale, and eighty years later, still remains the largest-ever. Facilities and manufacturing plants to develop and produce these new, powerful atomic bombs had been quietly operating at Los Alamos, New Mexico; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Hanford, Washington. Listening intently, Wilhelm’s team soon heard Stimson say, “Certain other manufacturing plants much smaller in scale are located in the United States and in Canada for essential production of needed materials.” The chemists looked at one another in anticipation of what he might say next and wondered, “Would he mention Iowa State?” Stimson continued, “Laboratories at the Universities of Columbia, Chicago, and California, Iowa State College...” With that, the men leapt from their chairs, overjoyed—the secret was finally out.
During the war, the team at Iowa State performed research and produced critical materials for the development of the atomic bomb. After the war, the numerous inventions by Wilhelm and his team, and the impact of those inventions to the outcome of the war, were recognized by the State of Iowa and U.S. governments.
Wilhelm and his boss, Frank Spedding, conceived to build a great research institution at Iowa State and proposed the founding of an Institute for Atomic Research. Charles Friley, president of Iowa State College, agreed, and he was able to procure $50,000 from the state to fund an initial team of twelve scientists.
Wilhelm and Spedding spent 1946 organizing the new institute, bringing on staff, and making plans for construction of new buildings for their grand undertaking—all while continuing the research of critical materials for the United States under the Manhattan Engineering District (the government’s managerial body of the Manhattan Project). Coincidental to all this was the advent of the Atomic Energy Act, which was signed into law by President Truman on Aug. 1, 1946. The act shifted the district from military to civilian control and launched the Atomic Energy Commission.
The two professors successfully lobbied to become part of the Atomic Energy Commission. In May 1947 the Ames Laboratory was established as a national laboratory on the Iowa State campus—the only national laboratory situated on a college campus. It all began, though, with a problem that needed solving.
In the years leading up to World War II, physicists had been researching atoms. They theorized splitting an atom would release immense amounts of energy, which could then be harnessed and put to use in a multitude of ways, not the least of which was weaponry.
When news of German scientists’ discovery of nuclear fission reached the U.S. in January 1939, it alarmed Western researchers—would Germany exploit nuclear fission by using it in a weapon? When Germany invaded Poland the following September, the race was on to build an atomic bomb.
During World War II a team of Iowa State researchers produced critical materials for the development of the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project. Their efforts led to the development of Ames National Laboratory, which remains the only national laboratory housed on a college campus.
CONFIDENTIAL COLLABORATION
The U.S. was slow to join the race. Significant hurdles had to be overcome to go from splitting one atom to building an atomic bomb. The first objective was to prove the theory that a self-sustained, controlled nuclear chain reaction was possible. Years into the war, though, the U.S. was still watching from afar as Germany marched across Europe destroying cities, performing atrocities, and killing millions of innocent civilians—and President Roosevelt had yet to provide any significant funding for research on fission.
The Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor became the demarcation point for the president. With newfound urgency, President Roosevelt quickly approved funding for more investigation into the plausibility of building an atomic weapon. Nobel laureate Arthur Compton, a physicist at the University of Chicago, was put in charge of the development project. Compton called Spedding at Iowa State in early 1942 to inquire if he would be interested in joining the Chicago team. Spedding jumped at the chance.
During covert meetings at the University of Chicago in late February 1942, Compton’s team laid out a plan to build a reactor to test the theory. Earlier research had pointed to uranium as the most likely element by which to achieve a self-sustained, controlled nuclear chain reaction. Though there were many problems to solve in building the world’s first nuclear reactor, the team identified the dearth of pure uranium as being a significant barrier to success. If they used impure uranium in the test reactor, the impurities would steal neutrons from the reaction and kill it, leading to a failed experiment and setting the project back months or even years.
The major snag to using pure uranium? It didn’t exist.
In nature, uranium exists in compounds. In the 150 years since the discovery of the element, no one had been able to purify uranium to the extent needed for this project. For the test reactor that physicist Enrico Fermi was designing at the University of Chicago, tons of ultrapure uranium, free of compound elements and other impurities, were going to be needed. Little was known about this mysterious metal. Even its basic chemical properties, such as its melting point, were misunderstood. However, what was known was that certain uranium compounds were dangerous, unstable, and highly explosive.
EXPERT METALLURGIST
Compton’s original plan to research uranium purification at the University of Chicago was thwarted because the facilities didn’t have the requisite equipment, in particular a special furnace for melting metals. So he assigned the task to chemists at Princeton University. Even so, Compton had little faith that the purity problem would be solved in time for the experiment he'd scheduled to take place in December 1942. He wondered if one of the many uranium compounds could be used as a substitute for uranium and wanted research to begin on that immediately.
Spedding later recalled, “We couldn’t do it in Chicago until we built a building … we had a furnace here at Ames.” He also told Compton there was a “whole team” of people at Iowa State who could get going on finding a substitute right away. Spedding failed to mention that his “whole team” consisted of two people: Wilhelm and himself. The urgency of the situation prompted Compton to agree to this arrangement, with the understanding that when his lab at the University of Chicago was properly equipped, the Ames team would move to there.
Upon Spedding’s return to Ames, he swiftly located Wilhelm, explained the project, and asked him to begin working on finding a substitute. Without hesitation, Wilhelm agreed. Charged with the task of finding a substitute, Wilhelm began his research straightaway, but it dawned on him that what the physicists really wanted was pure uranium.
“If pure uranium is what they need, I’ll give that to them, too,” Wilhelm thought.
Wilhelm was an unlikely character to change history. Born in 1900 on a farm outside the small town of Ellston in Ringgold County, Iowa, his early life was one of meager means. His parents were sharecroppers who never owned their own farm. To supplement the dinner table, Wilhelm’s father taught him and his siblings to hunt and fish.
Wilhelm’s education began in a one-room schoolhouse, Pumptown School. He never knew why they called it Pumptown School. He often chortled when reminiscing that “there was no pump and no town!” It was a classic, early 20th century country school that had no electricity or water. The schoolchildren fetched water for the day from the closest farm.
When basketball bounced into town in 1910, Wilhelm’s older brothers taught him to play. He became a phenom. By eighth grade he was a starter on the Ellston High School team and was making seemingly impossible shots. Harold Place, sports editor for the Des Moines News, wrote of Wilhelm, “He pumped in field baskets with monotonous regularity, and, playing on a minor team, forced the attention of every sports critic in the state.” In Wilhelm’s senior year, at the Ringgold County basketball tournament, the Drake University assistant coach was a referee and witnessed Wilhelm’s outstanding performance. He reported it to the head coach, who said, “Get him up here!”
Drake University offered Wilhelm a scholarship, though expectations were low that he would succeed in college because Ellston High School was unaccredited. But as a young boy, Wilhelm had shown early signs of an aptitude for mathematics. By second grade he’d already mastered the fourth-grader’s lessons and had become a math tutor to older students.
Soon after his arrival on campus at Drake, it became apparent to faculty that Wilhelm was uniquely talented, a gifted scholar who relished the problem-solving inherent to math, chemistry, and physics. To meet expenses he worked various odd jobs, managing to maintain his grades and also play on the Bulldog football, basketball, and baseball teams. On the basketball court he shined, became known as the “Tornado,” and played on the team that set and held a winning record for Drake for over fifty years. It was an easy decision for his teammates to elect him captain of the team for his senior year.
His dream to become a high school teacher and coach was realized upon graduating college. His winning record in Guthrie Center, Iowa, motivated him to become a college athletics coach. It didn’t take long before he coined the phrase, “Coaching is great guns, if you’re winning!” At the end of a disastrous year of coaching at a small college in Montana, where both his football and basketball teams lost every game, Wilhelm realized he was a better athlete than coach and decided to move back to Iowa to pursue a doctorate in chemistry.
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
As the project began, Spedding moved to the University of Chicago to lead the chemistry division there and placed Wilhelm in charge at Iowa State. The absence of knowledge on the basic chemical properties of uranium meant Wilhelm and his team were essentially starting from scratch. The breakneck pace at which they had to work—because every day more soldiers were dying in battle—was unheard of in scientific discovery. Collaboration and innovation were key to quickly gaining new information, learning from failures, and planning next steps.
Even if Wilhelm were able to invent a process to purify uranium, or discover a suitable substitute, there was a plethora of other problems to solve in order to safely use it and to accumulate the
Iowa State chemist Frank Spedding oversaw work of the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago in partnership with Harley Wilhelm’s work in Ames.
quantity needed for practical use in developing the atomic bomb. One such problem was to invent a casting method, which included finding a material uranium could be cast in without reacting with it. Wilhelm and his colleague C F Gray (PhD ‘42 chemistry) successfully did so.
Throughout the summer of 1942, the chemistry building (now Gilman Hall) hummed with activity 24 hours a day as Wilhelm and his team carried out myriad experiments. The fast-approaching test reactor experiment set for December 2 weighed heavily on everyone. Success seemed out of reach.
In late July, Spedding delivered a small sample of a rare uranium compound, uranium tetrafluoride. Wilhelm and colleagues Wayne Keller and Gerald Butler used it in an experiment on Aug. 3 that resulted in the first pure uranium—twenty grams.
The process entailed placing a mixture of uranium tetrafluoride and calcium into a heat-resistant and pressure-resistant vessel. Wilhelm used a Champion spark plug and a small amount of magnesium to heat the vessel and its contents, which catalyzed a chemical reaction. The result was a different compound, calcium fluoride, and pure uranium metal. It was a major breakthrough, but that tiny amount was a far cry from the twelve thousand pounds needed for the experiment in December.
It seemed unlikely that anyone could produce the quantity needed, but Wilhelm was intent on getting as close as possible. For the next five weeks he modified his experiments, gradually increasing the quantity of uranium resulting from each reaction. Eager to prove to Compton that he could scale-up production, Wilhelm asked Gray to cast all the pure uranium they had produced to date into a solitary ingot—a solid, oblong hunk of metal.
On Sept. 23, Wilhelm hand-carried the still warm eleven-pound ingot with him on the overnight train from Ames to
To purify uranium, Wilhelm’s process involved heating a mixture of uranium tetrafluoride and calcium which catalyzed a chemical reaction. The result was calcium fluoride and pure uranium metal.
The pilot plant at Iowa State College, dubbed Little Ankeny, produced two million pounds of uranium for the Manhattan Project. Formerly located east of the Food Science Building, the plant was torn down in 1953 and a plaque now marks its location on campus.
Chicago. He arrived on the University of Chicago campus, found Spedding, and together they took the ingot to show Compton. When Wilhelm pulled the ingot out of his traveling bag, Compton’s eyes bugged out and his jaw dropped. He didn’t believe it was solid or pure. It was quickly proved to be both, which induced Compton to set up a pilot plant in Ames to scale-up uranium production.
LITTLE ANKENY
Nicknamed for a huge munitions plant in Ankeny, Iowa, the pilot plant at Iowa State College produced the pure uranium core of the test reactor. Following the history-making Dec. 2 experiment that proved the theory, an aggressive production schedule was set. Little Ankeny went on to produce two million pounds of uranium for the project.
Working with uranium is dangerous and not for the faint of heart. Explosions and fires were commonplace at Little Ankeny, but, due to the classified nature of the work, the fire department was never allowed into the building. Wilhelm’s team became their own fire brigade.
After construction of the first Ames National Laboratory building, Little Ankeny’s use declined greatly. When it was torn down in 1953, Wilhelm quipped, “It was more radioactive than active.”
During the war, the Army-Navy “E” Award was given to industrial production plant teams for having achieved production quotas of vital war materials. More than eighty-five thousand companies were eligible for the “E” flag award, but only five percent earned it. Iowa State was distinct—the only educational institution to receive the “E” flag. Spedding proudly pointed out that, “We were in competition with industry during this time… and our process won out over all others, and we got the Army Navy “E” Award for it.” Notably, Wilhelm is the only individual known to have been awarded his own flag.
Wilhelm and his team set the hallmarks of collaboration and innovation that hold fast to this day as Ames National Laboratory celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2022.
– Teresa Wilhelm Waldof is a leading expert on the Ames Project, Harley Wilhelm's granddaughter, and author of "Wilhelm’s Way: The Inspiring Story of the Iowa Chemist Who Saved the Manhattan Project," available at www.WilhelmsWay.com, www.Amazon.com, or your favorite bookstore.
Science for a Sustainable Future
75 years of materials and energy solutions
Story by Laura Millsaps, Ames National Laboratory Images by Matt Van Winkle, Trevor Riedemann, Historical images contributed
An integral part of Iowa State University’s legacy of science, engineering, and innovation, Ames National Laboratory celebrates 75 years in 2022. Iowa’s National Laboratory is shaping its future much like it shaped its past: by being first, by forging new ground, and by using science to meet national and global challenges.
1940s
1942: The Ames Project was born as part of the Manhattan Project and helped build the world’s first nuclear
reactor. Manhattan Project researchers and Iowa State College chemists Frank Spedding and Harley Wilhelm developed a uranium purification method that became known as the Ames Process and is still in use today.
Oct. 12, 1945: The Ames Project was awarded the Army Navy "E" Flag for service to the country
during WWII (Iowa State University is only academic institution to have been awarded this honor). Between 1942 and 1945, the Ames Project produced 2 million pounds of purified uranium for the Manhattan Project.
May 17, 1947: The Ames Project became Ames
Laboratory. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the federal agency that preceded the current U.S. Department of Energy, establishes the Ames Project as a national laboratory.
1950s
1950: Ames Lab expanded its
footprint on campus. The AEC funded the construction of two buildings for Ames Lab – the first, called the Metallurgy Building, was re-named Wilhelm Hall in 1986. The second building, built in 1950, was renamed Spedding Hall in 1974.
1955: The lab became a recognized
authority in rare earth metals. The newly minted national laboratory developed methods that produced the purest rare earth metals in the world while reducing prices by as much as 1,000%.
In 1959, famed theoretical physicist Richard Feynman conjectured there was “plenty of room at the bottom,” and the future of science would rely increasingly on understanding and manipulating matter on the atomic scale. Fast forward to 2022, and to the Sensitive Instrument Facility. A resource shared jointly by Ames National Laboratory and Iowa State University, the building is specially constructed to reduce the acoustic and mechanical vibrations and electric static interference that disturb the accuracy of the electron beam microscopes housed inside. There, discoveries on the atomic scale have enormous potential impact on the future of new and developing technologies. At the facility, Ames National Laboratory Scientist and Iowa State University Professor of Materials Sciences and Engineering Matt Kramer (PhD ‘88 earth science), and Ames National Laboratory Scientist Lin Zhou, use state-of-the-art electron microscopy techniques to simultaneously see and manipulate materials to reveal how they function. An example of this precision research includes searching out, atom-by-atom, the appearance of oxygen atoms that appear in niobium, a material used in devices for quantum computing. The oxide forms impurities that can affect the stability of qubits, the unit of quantum information. The research is part of a larger national effort led by Fermilab to build an advanced quantum computer based on superconducting technologies. “All materials have impurities and imperfections that can dramatically impact their performance and reliability,” says Kramer. “As we design and develop materials at the quantum scale, their sensitivity to these defects is magnified. Having the capability to discover the defects and understand how they correlate to device fabrication is pivotal for technology improvement.”
Ames National Laboratory Scientist Lin Zhou, uses a state-of-the-art electron microscope in the Sensitive Instrument Facility – a resource shared by Ames National Laboratory and Iowa State. Their collaborative discoveries on the atomic scale have enormous potential to impact new and developing technologies.
1956: Ames Lab continued to contribute to nuclear science
including the development of processes for separating plutonium and other fission products from spent uranium fuel.
1956: Ames Lab made large
quantities of pure yttrium. It produced 18,000 pounds of pure yttrium for the AEC and the U.S. Air Force for the secret Project Pluto, which aimed to create nuclear powered aircraft (The U.S. government abandoned the effort in 1964).
1960s
1962: Ames Lab began using Iowa State’s new IBM 7074 computer.
1963: Ames Lab developed alternative fuels for nuclear
reactors. Researchers produced thorium metal with a purity of 99.985 percent for this purpose.
1966: The Rare Earth Information Center was
launched. A database of the world’s knowledge in the lanthanides, the center fielded tens of thousands of requests for scientific information from around the world by the time it closed in 2002.
1970s
1975: Ames Lab scientists developed the use of inductively coupled
plasma (ICP) to prepare samples for analysis with mass spectrometry. ICP is widely used today in environmental monitoring, geochemical and pharmaceutical analyses, metallurgy, and clinical research.
1975 - 1976: The Iowa Coal Project was launched.
A collaboration between Iowa State University and Ames Lab, the project developed an economical process for producing clean, sulfur-free coal for burning.
1977: The Department of Energy was created
with national laboratories including Ames organized under its authority.
1980s
1980: Ames Lab received Department of Defense funding to develop nondestructive evaluation techniques
for aircraft. Work here provided a foundation for the Center for Nondestructive Evaluation (CNDE) at Iowa State, founded in 1985.
Aaron Sadow (left) leads the Institute for Cooperative Upcycling of Plastics, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the Department of Energy. He and graduate student Kajol Tonk are re-imagining the science of plastics recycling. It could be argued that plastics are perfect human-made materials. They keep our food fresh and our medical supplies clean and safe. Plastics are everywhere in modern life: in our clothes, cars, houses, and electronics. Unfortunately, we don’t know how to manage discarded plastics, which escape landfills into the environment. Since mass production of plastics began, an estimated 8,300 million metric tons of plastic have been produced. If plastics are perfect, plastics recycling definitely is not – only about 9% of that total has been recycled. Plastics are composed of long chains of carbon atoms. These chains make plastics strong and flexible, but also stubbornly persistent in the environment once we’re done with them, taking hundreds of years to degrade. Current recycling methods break the weakest links in the chains, resulting in downgraded products that are not as valuable. “Scientists have designed every aspect of plastics’ properties to perform the way we want them to,” says Aaron Sadow, a scientist at Ames National Laboratory and professor of chemistry at Iowa State University, “except the ‘so-called’ end of life for used plastics. That’s where chemical upcycling of plastics could make a positive impact.” Sadow leads the Institute for Cooperative Upcycling of Plastics, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the Department of Energy, dedicated to re-imagining the science of plastics recycling. Sadow and his multi-institutional team of researchers are developing new catalysts that turn discarded plastics into more valuable chemicals by breaking the chains at precise positions. These are the building blocks for high-value chemicals like detergents, emulsifiers, fuels, solvents, and lubricants. The value of these products provides an economic incentive for plastics recycling, and the possibility of a future, less plastic-littered landscape. “We imagine used detergent bottles being turned into new detergents at the store, so not a drop is wasted. Or selling used grocery bags and milk bottles to a recycler who manufactures brand new tools in their 3D printer. Removing plastics from the waste stream and into a circular economy would change the world for the better,” says Sadow.
1981: The Materials Preparation Center was
established. Today, the specialized research center is globally recognized for ultrapure research grade samples of metals, alloys, and single crystals.
1984: Collaboration between Ames Lab and U. S. Navy researchers resulted in the development of Terfenol-D.
The material changes form in a magnetic field – a property that makes it ideal for sonar and transducer applications.
1990s
1990: Ames Lab was the first to demonstrate the existence of photonic bandgap crystals
used in solar cells, telecommunications, and lasers.
1994: Ames Lab engineers and mechanics created the Solar Ranger, a solar-energy powered pickup truck.
1996: A patent was granted
for lead-free solder and has been adopted throughout the manufacturing world. The patent was a top earner for Ames Lab and Iowa State University, with royalty income of over $58M.
The end of the line for a computer hard drive is usually a shredder, so that no data can be retrieved by hackers. The process produces a chaotic jumble of materials that is part treasure and part challenge. The treasure? Rare earth metals like neodymium and dysprosium; precious metals like silver, platinum, and gold; in-demand elements like cobalt and copper. The challenge? How to recover the treasure from the jumble. Rare earth magnets are the key ingredients of many modern technologies, like electric vehicles, wind turbines, and consumer electronics. For the last decade, skyrocketing demand for rare earths and other critical materials such as cobalt has forced industries to reconsider their use of these materials in manufacturing. The demand is intensified by a federal government effort to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Ames National Laboratory ’s Critical Materials Institute, a public-private consortium of academic institutions including Iowa State, Department of Energy National Laboratories, and industry partners, has been working to find ways to reduce, recycle, or find substitutes for the materials that are suffering from supply chain interruptions. The institute speeds economically feasible solutions to manufacturers, and several of them have garnered coveted R&D 100 awards, including a new technology that efficiently recovers rare earths and other valuable elements out of shredded computer hard drives. The process was recently licensed to TdVib LLC, a Boone, Iowa, based company for scaled up recovery of rare earth oxides. “We put the shreds into a chemical solution which leaches out the rare earth materials. The shreds then move on in the recycling process and the liquid is captured for further refining. We pull out the rare earth materials and create rare earth oxalate or oxide which we can then sell,” Dan Bina, president and CEO of TdVib, says. Ikenna Nlebedim, the Ames National Laboratory scientist who created the process in 2015, says the recovered oxide can be converted to rare earth metals using a process similar to the Ames Process used by Harley Wilhelm (PhD ‘31 chemistry) to purify uranium at Ames National Laboratory 75 years ago. “This method doesn’t require pre-sorting, and recovers rare earth oxides which match or surpass commercial grade materials in purity,” Nlebedim says. “Unlike traditional separation methods, it does not use acids. That’s a cost savings and eliminates the environmental impact of hazardous wastes.”
ONLINE EXTRAS:
Take a peek inside Ames National Laboratory, where shredded hard drives and other electronics have their rare earth materials extracted for repurposing. The technology has been licensed and scaled up by Iowa company TdVib LLC, in Boone and is similar to that used by Harley Wilhelm to purify uranium at Ames National Laboratory 75 years ago. Scan this QR code with your smart device to watch or visit www.ISUalum.org/VISIONS.
1997: The giant magnetocaloric effect
was discovered. A gadolinium-silicongermanium alloy displays a reversible temperature change when exposed to a magnetic field. Today, Ames Lab is developing this into alternatives to gas-compression refrigeration systems.
2000s
2000: Scientists discovered a super-slick, super-hard material consisting of boron, aluminum, and
magnesium. BAM is the second hardest bulk material after diamond, and can be used as an industrial coating to reduce friction.
2001: Multiplex Capillary Electrophoresis, a method of rapidly separating samples of complex chemical or biochemical mixtures, won
its fourth R&D 100 award. It is now the standard analysis tool used for DNA testing.
2004: Researchers pioneered the use of nanoscale catalysts to create biofuels
from all types of biomass, including corn stover, grass, wood pulp, animal waste, and garbage.
Researcher Ikenna Nlebedim (second from right) developed a technology that efficiently recovers rare earths and other valuable elements out of shredded computer hard drives. The process has been licensed to TdVib LLC in Boone, Iowa. Co-owners Scott Roberts (left), Dan Bina (second from left) and project manager Kevin Stoll (‘12 chemical engineering) round out the TdVib team.
2010s
2008: Ames Lab physicists grew the first single crystal of a new class of iron-arsenide superconductors, creating new research frontiers in physics. 2011: Dan Schechtman, an Ames Lab scientist, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for the discovery of
quasicrystals. The discovery upset long-standing views on the structure of matter itself.
2013: The Critical Materials Institute
was founded. In response to shortages of rare earth materials used in a host of clean energy technologies and consumer electronics, the Department of Energy established the CMI Energy Innovation Hub at Ames Lab .
2014: Ames Lab became the home to the first dynamic nuclear polarization solid-state nuclear magnetic
resonance spectrometer to be used for materials science and chemistry in the U.S. The instrument helps scientists understand how individual atoms are arranged in materials.
2020s
2022: Ames Laboratory is renamed Ames National
Laboratory.
A chicken yard in Mexico inspired Yalitza Curiel to pursue a degree in animal science at Iowa State. Thanks to support providing more equitable access to college and promising career paths for historically underrepresented students, she’ll be returning to her hometown of Ottumwa, Iowa, to put her degree to work.
ADVANCING CAREER AND COMMUNITY
By the Iowa State University Foundation Images contributed
On Yalitza Curiel’s Instagram, there is a photo of her as a young girl surrounded by chickens. A caption accompanying the image reads: “This is where my passion for poultry began! #Mexico #avicultura.” Though that chicken yard in Mexico may have inspired Curiel's (‘22 animal science) interest in poultry, Iowa State helped her turn it into a career through support aimed at providing more equitable access to college for students who have been historically underrepresented. Long fascinated by birds, she joined a poultry interest group at Iowa State and learned about the different varieties and breeds of chickens. The recent Iowa State graduate worked in the Robert T. Hamilton Poultry Teaching and Research Facility as a student, where she had direct experience with many aspects of egg production. “That’s how I got my job at the Poultry Science Farm,” she says. And with the state of Iowa being number one in egg production, students like Curiel who participate in poultry production and research have an immediate impact for egg producers, as well as prepare to become future experts for this field. As global challenges continue to escalate, finding solutions will require a wide range of perspectives, ideas, and talents. Attracting an eager, engaged, and diverse student body to Iowa State through donor-funded scholarships, fellowships, grants, and other support enables deserving students such as Curiel to engage in all that being part of a university community has to offer. “I really liked the opportunities I had to get involved in extracurricular activities that are available to everyone,” Curiel says. “As a student of color, you can sometimes feel you don’t belong in certain communities. At Iowa State, I didn’t feel excluded.” Curiel is poised to make her mark – in her career and in her community. She plans to move back to Ottumwa, Iowa, where she hopes to influence the future of her hometown. “I love to help people, so wherever I end up in my career, I’ll be happy if I’m helping others to move forward,” she says.
