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FURTHER CONNECTION: ELEMENT QUEST
“
...working in STEM means there is always a
new issue or problem to solve and I always feel
satisfied that my work is helping to understand
the world around us.
”
–DAWN SHAUGHNESSY
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR,
HEAVY ELEMENT GROUP
LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Ancient civilizations isolated elements such as
gold, silver, and iron from nature. By the time
Mendeleev presented the periodic table in 1869,
sixty elements had been discovered. Today, due
to the invention of new technologies, there are
118 known elements.
Twenty-two of those elements were
discovered by teams that included
California researchers and five are
named for California people or locations
(indicated in bold face font).
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at
the University of California, Berkeley, reported
discovery of the following:
technetium
astatine
neptunium
plutonium
curium
americium
berkelium
californium
einsteinium
fermium
mendelevium
nobelium
lawrencium
rutherfordium
dubnium
seaborgium
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
reported discovery of the following:
nihonium
flerovium
moscovium
livermorium
tennessine
oganesson
Dawn Shaughnessy leads the Heavy Element
Group at the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory, one research group where
the quest to discover new
elements continues.
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