Program gives graduate students the opportunity to work with national labs
Since its inception in 2014, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program has helped prepare graduate students for careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
“For decades, DOE has cultivated the expertise to meet the nation’s greatest scientific challenges,” said Under Secretary of Science and Innovation Geraldine Richmond. “Now more than ever, we need to invest in a diverse, talented pipeline of scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs who will be the future science and innovation leaders of this country.”
By providing world-class training and access to state-of-the-art facilities and resources at DOE national laboratories, the SCGSR program prepares graduate students to enter jobs that are critically important to the DOE mission.
Recently, 80 graduate students from 53 universities across the United States were selected for the SCGSR program’s 2021 Solicitation 2 cycle. The awardees include two PhD students who will have the opportunity to use Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility data in their research.
Both students will work with researchers who are co-investigators for Science Focus Areas supported by DOE’s Atmospheric System Research (ASR).
Payton Beeler, Washington University in St. Louis
Beeler, an engineering doctoral student, will bring her thesis research on soot particle properties and the changes they undergo during cloud processing to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state. Beeler will work alongside soot particle expert Laura Fierce, previously of Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. They will use detailed modeling and measurement data to better characterize the evolution of soot particles that occurs during cloud processing. Beeler’s approach to soot particle characterization will likely be used to analyze ARM measurements in the future.
Calvin Howes, University of California, Los Angeles
Howes, an atmospheric and oceanic sciences doctoral student, plans to continue his study of smoke impacts on climate at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. At Argonne, Howes will collaborate with atmospheric and climate scientist Yan Feng to evaluate aerosol and cloud observations from ARM’s 2016–2017 Layered Atlantic Smoke Interactions with Clouds (LASIC) field campaign using DOE’s Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM).
SCGSR awards are open to graduate students currently pursuing a PhD in physics, chemistry, materials science, biology (non-medical), mathematics, engineering, computer or computational sciences, and specific areas of environmental sciences that are aligned with the mission of the Office of Science. The research projects of the awardees are expected to advance the overall doctoral research and training of the graduate students, while providing access to the expertise, resources, and capabilities available at DOE laboratories.