Recently, Nenad Velisavljevic, 2005 Physics PhD graduate from Prof. Y. K. Vohra's high pressure group and currently staff member at Los Alamos National Laboratory, along with three co-workers received a DOE-NNSA Defense Programs Award of Excellence. On September 10, 2014, Dr. Donald L. Cook, Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs, presented the award to project team leader N. Velisavljevic (on right). Team was recognized for contribution toward development of a technique for achieving high strain rate compression using gas membrane diamond anvil cell and subsequent measurements performed using the new capability. High compression rate technique with DAC further helps bridge the strain rate gap between traditional static high pressure and dynamic compression techniques. Using the new capability measurements were performed on a broad range of metals, polymers, and energetic materials, with resulting data showing direct influence of compression rate on structural stability, decomposition, transformation rate, polymerization, etc., in these materials. Information gleaned from the measurement can be applied to further develop P-T phase diagrams, equation of state calculations, and mesoscale modeling capabilities.