Douglas Carpenter, PhD, has been name chief scientific officer and director of research and development at QuantumSphere, a Costa Mesa., Calif., manufacturer of metallic nanopowders for propellants, munitions and other applications in the aerospace, defense, energy and other markets for advanced material applications. Carpenter will to lead the company's technology strategy in areas such as nanonickel applications that improve the efficiencies of storing and generating new sources of power. Previously, he was chief scientist at Technanogy, a nanomaterials manufacturing company producing nanoaluminum particles. Before that, he was a scientist at Hercules Aerospace Co. and at Aerojet. He is a former faculty member at the University of the Pacific, in Stockton, Calif., and was a staff member at the Facility for Advanced Instrumentation at the University of California, Davis. . . . Thermo Electron Corp., a Waltham, Mass., supplier of analytical instruments and scientific equipment, has announced a new agreement with the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research Inc. (NIBRI) to supply ultrahigh-throughput screening automation technologies to its new global research headquarters in Cambridge. NIBRI will use Thermo's CRS Dimension4 distributed motion system for high-throughput screening to enhance its research and drug discovery efforts. Dimension4 is a modular laboratory platform that automatates laboratory assays, methods and protocols.