DOE’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research Program Selects 86 Outstanding U.S. Graduate Students

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science has selected 86 graduate students representing 31 states and Puerto Rico for the Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program’s 2023 Solicitation 2 cycle. Through world-class training and access to state-of-the-art facilities and resources at DOE national laboratories, SCGSR prepares graduate students to enter jobs of critical importance to the DOE mission and secures our national position at the forefront of discovery and innovation.

“The Graduate Student Research program is a unique opportunity for graduate students to complete their PhD training with teams of world-class experts aiming to answer some of the most challenging problems in fundamental science,” said Harriet Kung, Acting Director of the DOE Office of Science. “Gaining access to cutting edge tools for scientific discovery at DOE national laboratories will be instrumental in preparing the next generation of scientific leaders.”

Awardees were selected from a diverse pool of graduate applicants from institutions around the country. Selection was based on merit review by external scientific experts. Since 2014, the SCGSR program has provided more than 1150 U.S. graduate awardees from 165 universities with supplemental funds to conduct part of their thesis research at a host DOE laboratory in collaboration with a DOE laboratory scientist. In this cohort, more than 31% of SCGSR awardees are women, about 16% of the awardees attend Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), and 13% are from institutions in jurisdictions that are part of the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).

SCGSR awardees work on research projects of significant importance to the Office of Science mission that address critical energy, environmental, and nuclear challenges at national and international scales. Projects in this cohort span seven Office of Science research programs. Awards were made through the SCGSR program’s first of two annual solicitation cycles for FY 2023.

Applications for the ongoing 2024 Solicitation 1 cycle are due 5:00pm EST, May 1, 2024. Graduate students currently pursuing Ph.D. degrees in areas of physics, chemistry, material sciences, biology (non-medical), geology, planetary sciences, mathematics, engineering, computer or computational sciences, or specific areas of environmental sciences that are aligned with the mission of the Office of Science are eligible to apply to the SCGSR program. The research projects are expected to advance the graduate awardees’ overall doctoral research and training while providing access to the expertise, resources, and capabilities available at the DOE national laboratories. The award cohort from the 2024 Solicitation 1 cycle is expected to be announced around September 2024.

A list of the 86 awardees, their institutions, host DOE laboratory/facility, and priority research areas of projects can be found at the SCGSR Awards and Publications page.

For more information on SCGSR, please go to the Office of Science Graduate Student Research program page.