W. Alex Gabbard is leader of the High Temperature Fuel Behavior Group in the Nuclear Fuel Materials Section of ORNL's Metals and Ceramics Division. He is a principal investigator for the Laboratory's Nuclear Energy Program. He served in the U.S. Navy during the war in Vietnam and earned an M.S. degree in physics from North Carolina State University. He came to ORNL in 1980 to work in the Fusion Energy Division, where he held leadership positions in support of two experimental fusion devices, the Impurity Study Experiment and the Advanced Toroidal Facility. When he transferred to the Metals and Ceramics Division in 1990, Gabbard became a group leader in charge of design and development of the Core Conduction Cooldown Test Facility for testing ceramic-coated nuclear fuel under simulated accident conditions. In addition to his technical publications, Gabbard has published seven books and a number of magazine articles. He has written both fiction and nonfiction, covering subjects ranging from Southern humor to world-class automobiles.

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