Physcial Sciences Division
Staff Awards & Honors
June 2008
James Amonette Recognized for Outstanding Contributions to Science Education
Congratulations to Dr. James Amonette at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on receiving the Fitzner/Eberhardt Award for Outstanding Contributions to Science and Engineering Education. This award recognizes the passion for research and the commitment to sharing it with others.
The Fitzner/Eberhardt awards are given annually in memory of PNNL researchers Richard Fitzner and Les Eberhardt who died in a plane crash in 1992, cutting short their outstanding service to research and to the education of future scientists and engineers.
An avid researcher in the area of carbon sequestration, Amonette has mentored numerous high school students, undergraduates, and teachers. He treats his interns as true professionals and provides challenging projects, a recipe that has yielded excellent results.
"Jim Amonette, through a wonderful mentorship, has shown me the fun side of science - classroom textbooks will haunt me no more as I move on to college because I know what I am studying for," said high school senior Steven Sidi Dai.
In addition to mentoring, Amonette has built strong collaborative ties to research programs at Whitman College, Heritage College, and the Oregon Health and Science University. For example, he hosted Dr. Paul Tratnyek from OHSU during his sabbatical at PNNL in 2000 and 2001, leading to the development of a strong continuing collaboration on the chemistry of nano-scale iron particles, a collaboration that has resulted in many publications and ongoing projects.
