Supporting Tech Innovations at the Department of Energy National Laboratories
Tags: Technology Transfer, Department Of Energy, Research And Development, Human Centered Design, Software Development

Supporting Tech Innovations at the Department of Energy National Laboratories

The Department of Energy’s 17 National Laboratories form a nationwide network that is working to solve some of the world’s greatest scientific challenges.

Since 1947, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Labs have been conducting novel research and leading the charge in significant scientific advancements. Our National Labs installed the first web server in North America, created the optical digital recording technology that enabled the creation of DVDs, and built the fastest and most powerful supercomputers. Today, the National Labs are decoding human DNA, mapping the universe, and developing software and manufacturing technologies that are changing the way we work and live.

Importantly, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the network of labs has been working to determine the protein structures of the coronavirus, inform vaccine development, and model the progression of the epidemic.

The work of the National Laboratories has directly benefited industry and the public at large for nearly three-quarters of a century. This sharing of transformative science and research solutions to help industries and people — known as commercialization or tech transfer — is critical to the Department of Energy’s mission.

Photo Markus Spiske / Unsplash

How RS21 Supports Tech Transfer at the National Labs

Many innovations from the National Labs have made tremendous impacts in healthcare, science, and technology; however, numerous technologies and breakthroughs still remain behind Lab walls. Technical teams at the Labs hold keys to addressing real-world challenges — if only people had access to this incredible repository of information.

To help bridge the gap between research and commercialization, and between technical and semi-technical users, RS21 supports projects across the software maturity spectrum. More specifically, our agile software developers, UX/UI designers, and data scientists work with technical teams to achieve the following:

Transform models and raw data into actionable insights

Streamline workflows for technical clients

Communicate complexity to non-technical audiences through user-friendly dashboards

Transforming Models into Actionable Insights

RS21 transforms technical information, existing models, and prototypes into inspiring, scientific visualizations. Employing best practices in human-centered design and data-driven software development, we partner with the National Labs to create:

Decision support tools

Scientific visualizations

Interactive information visualizations

Complex systems and risk/threat modeling

Environmental modeling

This enables researchers to demonstrate the value of their technology, secure funding, update existing tools, and attract users. In fact, for every dollar spent on design and development, researchers receive an estimated $10 to $100 in return. RS21 helps the National Labs capture that value to advance and promote their innovative work.

Streamlining Technical Workflows

Scientists’ time should be spent building capability instead of navigating and managing infrastructure. Research teams are often overburdened by complex workflows. Our computer science and software engineers can help manage legacy and modern code so different components talk to each other seamlessly. In addition, MOTHR Core handles the infrastructure details, enabling more flexible and efficient workflows while avoiding vendor lock-in.



Design and development of systems that make life easier mean that scientists and analysts can perform the computation they need without having to manage the actual compute resources. This frees up more time to focus on the science.



Creating efficiencies and flexible architectures also ensures the longevity and applicability of research. For example, existing models might only be accessible on certain machines, limiting who and when researchers can access the information. Our tools allow components, functions, or individual models to be easily deployed and managed on different resources while also retaining the portability of containers.

Communicating Complexity to Non-Technical Audiences

Our technical team of UX designers, engineers, and scientists help translate complex science and research into intuitive insights so more people can understand and use it. For example, RS21 partnered with Lawrence Livermore National Labs on an energy and smart meter project.

Smart meters are electronic devices that record grid information such as energy consumption, voltage and current levels. This data enables providers to monitor their system and plan emergency response scenarios. However, smart meters monitoring the energy grid rely on the communication grid to get this important data to utilities. To better understand how to collect and utilize these data to improve grid resiliency, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) are modeling this network using a co-simulation framework called HELICS that enables both simulations to run together, leading to a better understanding of interdependencies between the two systems.

In a project funded by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE), RS21 partnered with LLNL to concept out a tool for visualizing HELICS simulation results, enabling scientists to intuitively explore the system interdependencies and identify anomalies. This tool, called CoViz, will help scientists and utilities better understand the implications of smart meter technology and how it can be used to improve power and communications grid resiliency.

CoViz UI Prototype. (LLNL-MI-813334)

RS21 interviewed LLNL scientists, iterating with the LLNL team on wireframes. After developing an early UI concept animation to illustrate how a user might navigate the tool, we built a clickable prototype and tested it out with LLNL scientists. Based on their feedback, we continued to ideate with the LLNL team and ultimately delivered a prototype that can be used as a blueprint for software application development.

Tech Transfer: From Research to Commercialization

At RS21, we work to solve complex problems using data science and visualization. Our team is a unique blend of experienced data scientists, web developers, engineers, user experience architects, user interface designers, and project managers. We apply cutting-edge data science techniques with proprietary and open source data sets to create compelling visualizations that communicate solutions and bring people together across disciplines to facilitate new ways of thinking, creating, and working.

RS21 is a proven reliable partner and trusted advisor to National Laboratories. Our desire to connect people with data and research through beautiful, intuitive interfaces that promote understanding and inspire innovative solutions will help the Labs improve efficiencies, maximize productivity, and achieve tech transfer goals.

For more information about how we might help your team move from research to commercialization, download an overview of capabilities we bring to National Labs.