This professional development fellowship will enable the recipient to immerse herself in the research activities at the Ames National Laboratory in three major areas: materials chemistry, condensed matter physics and metallurgy and ceramics. Over the course of two summers, by participating in lab group meetings, discussing research and research results and publications with group members, and attending symposia at scientific meetings, this historian of science and technology will gain scientific and technical literacy to help her in her research. The research involves an exploration of the relationships between the process of scientific research and its organization, management, and funding. To explore this relationship the investigator will examine the history of scientific activity at Ames Laboratory. In its forty-five year tenure the facility has expanded and become more complex. However, small-scale, single-investigator laboratory-based research continues to define its msision. The investigator will also be able to conduct oral interviews with present and former laboratory personnel, to chronicle their recollections of the history of Ames. During the academic year, the investigator will research other aspects of the project, including Frank Spedding's papers and the archivals resources at the laboratory, Iowa State University, the Department of Energy and its Chicago field office. The internship will help to put those sources in context, while research during the academic year will raise new issues for discussion with the laboratory scientists during the second summer. Results from this research will be of benefit to policy makers and scientists as institutional bureaucracies and mechanisms of management and funding for science are restructured.
