In the seventh year of the Early Career Research Program managed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, five researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are on the list of 49 recipients announced today, including 22 from DOE’s national laboratories and 27 from U.S. universities.

The program is designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the crucial early career years, when many scientists do their most formative work.

“We invest in promising young researchers early in their careers to support lifelong discovery science to fuel the nation’s innovation system,” said Cherry Murray, director of DOE’s Office of Science.  “We are proud of the accomplishments these young scientists already have made, and look forward to following their achievements in years to come.”

The winners from Berkeley Lab will each receive grants of $2.5 million over five years to cover year-round salary plus research expenses.

This year’s Berkeley Lab winners and their projects and nominating program offices:

CistonJim Ciston, is a staff scientist at the National Center for Electron Microscopy at the Molecular Foundry. His award is for: “MAPSTER Microscopy: Multimodal Acquisition of Properties and Structure with Transmission Electron Reciprocal‐space Microscopy,” selected by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences.

 

 

Gates_photoJacklyn Gates of the Nuclear Science Division studies superheavy element isotopes, and received her award for: “Mass Measurements and Decay Spectroscopy of the Heaviest Elements,” selected by the Office of Nuclear Physics.

 

 

 

ChadMitchell_150pxChad Mitchell is part of the Accelerator Technology and Applied Physics Division working on beam physics and will be working on, “Compensation of Nonlinear Space Charge Effects for Intense Beams in Accelerator Lattices.” He was selected by the Office of High Energy Physics.

 

 

IanSharpPhotoIan Sharp, of the Chemical Sciences Division, works at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis. His project, “Overcoming Charge Transport Limitations in Thin Film Semiconductor Photoelectrodes,” was selected by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences.

 

 

 

JvanTilborg_149x180yJeroen van Tilborg also hails from the Accelerator Technology and Applied Physics Division working on the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator. He’ll be focusing on, “A Compact Laser‐Plasma‐ Accelerator‐Based FEL for Ultra‐Fast Hyper‐Spectral Experiments,” selected by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences.

 

 

To be eligible, no more than 10 years can have passed between the year the researcher’s Ph.D. was awarded and the year of the deadline for the proposal. They must also be full-time, permanent, or non-postdoc employees.

For more information on all the winners and the award, go here.