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Fast Facts
Total employees: 13,137
Triad National Security, LLC: 9,397
Centerra Group, LLC Los Alamos (Guard Force): 281
Compa, Staff and support contractors: 478
Students: 1,323
Unionized craft workers: 1,160
Post doctoral researchers: 498
Located 35 miles northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, on 34.7 square miles of DOE-owned property.
1,280 individual facilities, including 47 technical areas with 9 million square feet under roof.
Replacement value of $14.2 billion
FY17:
63% Weapons programs
10% Nonproliferation programs
4% Safeguards and Security
7% Environmental Management
4% DOE Office of Science
3% Energy and other programs
9% Work for Others
Triad and students only
35% of employees live in Los Alamos, the remainder commute from Santa Fe, Española, Taos and Albuquerque.
Average Age: 43
65% male, 35% female
45% minorities
67% university degrees
27% hold undergraduate degrees
19% hold master’s degrees
21% have earned a PhD
145 R&D100 awards
34 E.O. Lawrence Awards
9 Presidential Early Career Awards
3 Glenn Seaborg Medals
Edward Teller Medal
Nobel Prize in Physics, Frederick Reines
Albuquerque to Los Alamos, NM
98 miles; 1 hr, 51 min.
Driving directions
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As of Aug. 18, 2020
Opening a window to quantum weirdness
- 9/27/20
The quantum butterfly non-effect
- 9/21/20
New topical antiseptic kills antibiotic-resistant bacteria
To battle super-resilient bacteria, scientists have developed a new topical ointment designed to kill what were once considered “unkillable” bacteria - 9/6/20
Three big threats to satellites
A look at three of the biggest threats to satellites and what's being done to counter them - 8/27/20
Computer tool tracks water’s changing impact in the warming Arctic
- 8/16/20
Finding new ways to keep the land alive
A team at Los Alamos is using computers to model how the land is impacted by changes in temperature and precipitation, taking into account elevation, soil data, geology, vegetation and other factors - 8/2/20
Making science fiction a reality
The Los Alamos team targeted two areas, improving bioplastics manufacturing and on-demand vaccine development - 8/2/20
New Mars rover, with LANL components, to search for life
Its primary and unique purpose is to collect samples that a future spacecraft can return to Earth - 7/19/20
Low-cost quantum dot windows could power a solar future
A team at Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed a technique for depositing a layer of a fluorescent material on the glass surface - 6/21/20
Disease outbreaks happen all the time, but...
The scientific community is working overtime to understand the virus and mitigate its impacts - 4/11/20
AI pinpoints renewable energy resources
All across New Mexico, a powerful energy source seethes in the Earth’s solid crust - 4/5/20
Expedition drifts in the Arctic ice to study climate
The Los Alamos team supports the Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement user facility, which provides the research community with observations of Earth’s atmosphere - 2/16/20
Carbon capture: Solved by software?
The approach of burying CO2 emissions deep underground has struggled to be economically viable, but that could be changing - 1/23/20
Unraveling the mysteries of the tiniest living things
The Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research has provided $10 million to establish a National Microbiome Data Collaborative - 11/24/19
Precise proton beam takes aim at cancer
Using new technology, oncologists create images of tumors during treatment, enabling greater precision without harming healthy tissue - 11/10/19
LANL protects milkweed to preserve monarchs
A Los Alamos team has been documenting the cycles and seasons of monarch butterflies and the location of milkweed on Laboratory property - 10/27/19
At LANL, breaking down data to address global problems
The ability to collect information far outpaces the ability to fully utilize it—yet that information may hold the key to solving some of the biggest global challenges facing the world today. - 10/13/19
Making a material difference
Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Sigma Complex apply fundamental science and research to take this advanced manufacturing to an even higher level - 9/22/19
Beetles and piñons shed light on world’s ecology
Researchers are now including beetle population dynamics in Earth-system models alongside water cycles, temperature fluctuations, vegetation dynamics and other global and local factors - 9/15/19
Welcome to nuclear inspector school
Inspectors go through training at Los Alamos National Laboratory, in one of the laboratory’s nuclear facilities, as part of their requirements to become qualified inspectors. - 9/1/19
A missing link in predicting hurricane damage
Eroding coastlines play a significant role in how infrastructure will be affected—but a new computer model now factors them in - 8/30/19
Fighting wildfires with computer models
Prescribed burns can remove excess fuel from the forest floor, and algorithms can help fire crews know where to set them - 8/27/19
Preparing the quantum workforce of the future
The Quantum Computing Summer School accepts students from all over the world to receive tutorials from quantum-computation experts and gain hands-on experience and one-to-one mentoring - 8/11/19
Did life sign the guestbook on Mars?
If life exists on Mars, it still hasn’t showed itself, but recent evidence from the red planet increasingly supports the possibility - 7/18/19
Los Alamos scientists school Wikipedia about women in science
A group of Lab employees gathered to create or edit biographies of Los Alamos female scientists on Wikipedia - 7/13/19
Using algae to try and solve the plastic problem
Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed an alternative method to sustainably manufacture plastic that is not only durable but is easily biodegradable - 7/8/19
The problem with quantum computers
It’s called decoherence—but while a breakthrough solution seems years away, there are ways of getting around it - 6/10/19
Reaping the unexpected dividends of space exploration
Space science has likewise yielded unexpected discoveries and unintended applications — some at Los Alamos National Laboratory - 6/10/19
You can’t see it, but it’s 200+ times stronger than steel
Atomic armor coating extends the lifetime of devices by making them much more rugged in even the most extreme environments. - 6/2/19
Basic quantum research will transform science, industry
All most people hear about is quantum computing, but that's hardly the whole story - 5/17/19
Helping health workers understand unfolding disease outbreaks
This is the plan for a web-based disease-outbreak tool developed at Los Alamos, a quick analysis resource called AIDO (“I-do”) for Analytics for Investigation of Disease Outbreaks. - 4/28/19
The hidden seismic symphony in earthquake signals
Machine learning can reveal acoustic vibrations that could improve forecasting - 4/25/19
Unlocking secrets about the origin of the universe
Los Alamos researchers are contributing to the project by designing an advanced tracking detector based on a new type of sensor system called MAPS - 4/15/19
How big data can help save the world
Emerging analytic and computing tools are enabling much better use of huge data sets - 3/27/19
New system to check for dangerous natural gas leaks
A team from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Aeris Technology and Rice University has developed the Autonomous, Low- cost, Fast Leak Detection System (ALFaLDS) to detect, locate and quantify leaks quickly, safely and inexpensively. - 3/24/19
Healthy forests depend on balancing fire and water
To unravel exactly how fire influences moisture in burned soil, hydrologists and other environmental scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a sophisticated computer model. - 3/11/19
Modeling natural disasters to strengthen power grids
To address the need to reinforce power grids, scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a simulation tool for utility companies. - 2/17/19
Doing work that matters
At the Laboratory, I am privileged to work with dedicated scientists every day seeking solutions to the world’s toughest global security problems. - 1/26/19
Five cool things you can do with an ‘atom smasher’
The most powerful linear accelerator in the world when it opened in 1972, LANSCE speeds protons, one of the basic building blocks of atoms, to 84 percent the speed of light and energies as high as 800 million electron volts. - 1/14/19
Sea ice: More than just frozen water
A Los Alamos National Laboratory team developed a software package known as CICE that calculates the physics of sea ice, such as how it freezes, melts and moves across the ocean’s surface. - 12/16/18
What happens when an explosive is detonated?
Scientists at Los Alamos combine computer simulations and innovative experiments that verify what the computers come up with, particularly the simulations of the short-lived chemical bonds formed during detonation. - 11/30/18
Modeling a better burn to boost engine performance
Scientists at Los Alamos have developed a new software package known as FEARCE, short for Fast, Easy, Accurate and Robust Continuum Engineering. - 11/14/18
Using sound to see through solid objects
At Los Alamos National Laboratory, a team of scientists have invented a technology that works somewhat like Superman’s X-ray vision. - 11/11/18
America must invest in R and D, personnel for arms control verification
The Big Science model continues to drive innovation at our nation’s nuclear weapons laboratories where the country’s nuclear-detection expertise resides. - 10/26/18
Catching hackers in the act
At Los Alamos National Laboratory, information is not only closely guarded, tools are being developed to help others detect and respond quickly to targeted attacks. - 10/7/18
Build small nuclear reactors for battlefield power
A solution could be a new micro-nuclear reactor being developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Westinghouse power company. - 9/20/18
LANL shoots for the moon in search for life on Europa
To help NASA with its interplanetary research, Los Alamos National Laboratory is designing a prototype instrument capable of withstanding the extreme conditions on Europa. - 9/9/18
Are we ready for the future of warfare?
Protecting against biowarfare starts with understanding the movement of diseases through populations. - 9/4/18
Why we need active experiments in space
Active space-based experiments began early in the space age, when little was known about the near-Earth environment, and focused on very fundamental aspects of the space environment and its interaction with spacecraft. - 8/31/18
New approach to extracting fossil fuels has benefits
Recent research at Los Alamos has demonstrated that using CO2 for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) can be commercially viable under the recently revised 45Q tax regulation. - 8/30/18
Stemming the spread of HIV by accurately predicting its spread
The computer simulations were consistent with actual DNA data obtained from a global public HIV database, developed and maintained by Los Alamos National Laboratory. - 8/1/18
Targeted radioactive treatment offers promise in cancer treatment
A radioactive isotope called actinium could be a new breakthrough in cancer research. - 7/8/18
Using 1 trillion files helps scientist find a needle in a haystack
High-performance computing at Los Alamos continues to lead the way on extreme scale science. - 6/22/18
Long-range Wireless Sensor Network hardware
The Long-range Wireless Sensor Network easily, efficiently and affordably collects, processes, and transmits data in all kinds of rugged and remote outdoor environments. - 5/13/18
Nipping frost in the bud
Using software developed at Los Alamos, work is being done to measure and predict frost events to help farmers protect against frost damage, and improve crop health and yield. - 4/27/18
Supercomputers tackle antibiotic-resistant ‘superbugs’
One type of efflux pump, which until recently had only been studied piecemeal, was modeled in its entirety and simulated using supercomputers at Los Alamos National Laboratory. - 4/25/18
Going with the gut
The work exploits the Laboratory’s extensive biological research efforts developed in support of our national security mission. - 4/17/18
Preventing a cyber zombie apocalypse
Attacks like these are the reason Los Alamos National Laboratory has been working on cybersecurity techniques, processes and tools to prevent and detect cyberattacks. - 4/8/18
A slow neutron beats a flipping fast bit
Keeping the Los Alamos supercomputers running at peak efficiency directly supports national security. - 3/23/18
SMART cables: A new undersea look at earthquakes
Using data from seismic stations around the world, scientists can learn more about the geology inside of the earth, including things like earthquake location and magnitude. - 3/11/18
Computers learn to imagine the future
Researchers are simulating biological neural networks on supercomputers, enabling machines to learn about their surroundings, interpret data and make predictions much the way humans do. - 2/28/18
Using poop to cure gut infections
Los Alamos National Laboratory aims to make fecal transplants a thing of the past. - 2/23/18
Forecasting diseases one image at a time
Better tracking of infectious diseases can help us improve disease prediction and, consequently, more quickly stop their spread. - 2/21/18
Augmented reality combines worlds to make the real world safer
The Lab is investigating technology applications and writing software in support of the Lab’s national security mission. - 2/12/18
Kilopwer reactor
When we imagine sending humans to live on Mars, the moon or other planetary bodies in the not-so-distant future, a primary question is: How will we power their colony? - 1/18/18
Supercomputers tackle antibiotic resistance
One type of efflux pump, which until recently had only been studied piecemeal, was modeled in its entirety and simulated using supercomputers at Los Alamos National Laboratory. - 1/7/18
