Genomic Science Program
U.S. Department of Energy | Office of Science | Biological and Environmental Research Program

DOE’s SCGSR Program Selects 60 Outstanding U.S. Graduate Students

Students Will Perform Research at National Laboratories

The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science has selected 60 graduate students representing 26 states for the Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program’s 2023 Solicitation 1 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.

“This is an incredible experience for students—being able to conduct research at a national laboratory will have far reaching impacts,” said Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, Director of the DOE Office of Science. “We hope that these students will continue their path in science and I look forward to seeing what they do in the future.”

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 1066 U.S. graduate awardees from 161 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 28% of SCGSR awardees are women, about 27% of the awardees attend Minority Serving Institutions, and 20% are from institutions in jurisdictions that are part of the Establishing 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.

Four awardees were selected to join BER’s Genomic System Science program in two research areas:

Computational Biology and Bioinformatics

  • Logan Hessefort (Arizona State University) will conduct research at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory with DOE scientist Gregg Beckham.

Environmental Microbiology

  • Jessica Novak (University of Maryland) will conduct research at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory with DOE scientist Brandon Knott.
  • Sean Schaefer (University of New Hampshire) will conduct research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory with DOE scientist Steven Blazewicz.
  • Bronte Sone (University of Idaho) will conduct research at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory with DOE scientist Kirsten Hofmockel.

Applications for the ongoing 2023 Solicitation 2 cycle are due 5:00pm EST, November 8, 2023. An application assistance workshop will be held on October 10, 2023, and prospective applicants can register here.

Graduate students currently pursuing PhD degrees in areas of physics, chemistry, material sciences, biology (non-medical), 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 2023 Solicitation 2 cycle is expected to be announced around May 2024.

A list of the 60 awardees, their institutions, host DOE laboratory/facility, and priority research areas of projects can be found at https://science.osti.gov/wdts/scgsr/SCGSR-Awards-and-Publications.

For more information on SCGSR: https://science.osti.gov/wdts/scgsr.