1. Clarice Evone Phelps is an American nuclear chemist researching the processing of radioactive transuranic elements at the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
25 Facts About Clarice Phelps
1. 2.
Clarice Phelps was part of ORNL's team that collaborated with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research to discover tennessine.
3.
Clarice Phelps was raised in the American state of Tennessee.
4.
Clarice Phelps's interest was further nurtured by her secondary school science teachers.
5.
Clarice Phelps is an alumna of the Tennessee Aquatic Project and Development Group, a nonprofit organization for at-risk youth.
6.
Clarice Phelps completed a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Tennessee State University in 2003.
7.
Clarice Phelps enrolled in the Navy's Nuclear Power School, which she credits with teaching her "how to study".
8.
Clarice Phelps served as a non-commissioned officer in the United States Navy Nuclear Power Program.
9.
Clarice Phelps was deployed twice, and was the only black woman in her division on the ship.
10.
Clarice Phelps started as a technician and was later promoted to research associate and program manager.
11.
Clarice Phelps is a member of the Medical, Industrial and Research Isotopes Group, where she researches elements such as actinium, lanthanum, europium, and samarium.
12.
Clarice Phelps was involved in the discovery of the second-heaviest known element, tennessine.
13.
When Oak Ridge National Laboratory held a gala to honor and celebrate the team that discovered tennessine, Clarice Phelps's name was left off the list, and when she showed up, she cried as she realized that she did not have a seat at the table with the other scientists.
14.
Clarice Phelps was told that her name had been cut off by mistake due to a line break in a spreadsheet.
15.
Clarice Phelps has contributed to additional research efforts, including those of spectroscopic analysis and spectrophotometric valence state studies of plutonium-238 and neptunium-237 and 238 for the National Aeronautic and Space Administration.
16.
Clarice Phelps has studied electrodeposition with californium-252 for the Californium Rare Isotope Breeder Upgrade project.
17.
Clarice Phelps is involved in several outreach projects to increase youth participation in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
18.
Clarice Phelps serves on ORNL's Educational Outreach Committee as its diversity chair for Knox County Schools.
19.
Clarice Phelps has done outreach through the ASCEND program of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority's graduate chapter, establishing a program to teach robotics, drones, circuitry, and coding to inner city high school students in Knoxville.
20.
Clarice Phelps is the Vice President of the board of Youth Outreach in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
21.
Clarice Phelps was featured on the Oak Ridge Associated Universities STEM stories program, partnering with nearby schools in Tennessee.
22.
Clarice Phelps received the 2017 YWCA Knoxville Tribute to Women Award in the category Technology, Research, and Innovation.
23.
Clarice Phelps was one of two Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers thus honored.
24.
Clarice Phelps is associated on this honorary periodic table with the element einsteinium, having along with others, including Julie Ezold, researched purification of einsteinium-254, and her fellow awardee, the post-doctoral researcher Nathan Brewer of Oak Ridge laboratory's Physics Division, is associated with the element tennessine.
25.
At the December 6,2019 TEDxNashvilleWomen, Clarice Phelps presented the talk "How I Claimed a Seat at the Periodic Table", where, according to TED Talks, she "debunk[ed] the myth of solitary genius and challenge[d] institutional elitism by sharing stories of women of color making their way in science".