Two of the thirty annual awards granted for excellence in technology transfer from the Federal Laboratory Consortium, went to Pacific Northwest Laboratories (PNL) researchers. Karl Castleton; James Droppo, Jr.; Bonnie Hoopes; and Gene Whelan won their award for development of the Multimedia Environmental Pollutant Assessment System (MEPAS), environmental remediation software which uses physics-based modeling codes to determine potential impacts on human health from various contaminant behaviors. MEPAS was developed under a partnership between the DeparTMent of Energy, PNL, Mesa State College in Colorado, and AT&T. PNL has granted Mesa State College a license to use the software in training and software development and is seeking commercial partners for potential licensing agreements.
Janet Bryant, Gregory Holter, and Michael White won an award for developing the ReOptTM software used to select appropriate and available technologies for cleanup of contaminated waste sites. Users of this software can choose as many as three parameters for their search — the contaminated medium, characteristics of the contaminant, and the general method for cleaning up the site. Because of its potential for assisting other government agencies and private business, ReOptTM has been licensed for commercial development to Sierra Geophysics, Inc. of Kirkland, Washington.
The Federal Laboratory Consortium established the technology transfer awards in 1984 to honor federal laboratory employees nationwide for creativity and innovation in developing products and processes and transferring new technologies to private industry.
