Professor Walton Wins DoE’s Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award

Professor Krista Walton of Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering is one of eight U.S. scientists and engineers to receive the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award this year for contributions in research and development supporting the U.S. Department of Energy’s missions in science, energy, and national security. 

Since 1959, the Lawrence Award has recognized mid-career scientists and engineers in the United States who have advanced new research and scientific discovery in atomic, molecular, and chemical sciences; biological and environmental sciences; computer, information, and knowledge sciences; condensed matter and materials sciences; energy science and innovation; fusion and plasma sciences; high energy physics; national security and nonproliferation; and nuclear physics.

“These researchers have made significant advances and contributions across a broad range of disciplines critical to Energy Department missions,” says U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette. “We congratulate them on their many accomplishments and look forward to their achievements in the coming years.”

Walton (in the category of Atomic, Molecular, and Chemical Sciences) was honored for her “pioneering and interdisciplinary research of porous material stability under a variety of challenging conditions and advancing separation science. Working at the intersection of chemistry, computation, and chemical engineering, Walton has identified physical and chemical factors driving water stability of sorbents, especially metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), and the impact of defects and complex mixtures on the chemical stability of MOFs."

Walton is the Associate Dean for Research & Innovation in Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering and the Robert “Bud” Moeller Faculty Fellow.