User Facilities in Spotlight at Inaugural Office of Science Graduate Fellows Conference

This year, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science awarded its first class of fellowships to about 150 graduate researchers in the fields of physics, engineering, biology, and physical sciences. These up-and-coming scientists were introduced to the DOE scientific user facilities during a Graduate Fellows Conference held at Argonne National Laboratory in early August. Jimmy Voyles, ARM instrument team leader and field campaign coordinator, was invited to represent the ARM Climate Research Facility at this inaugural event. The conference covered the overall set of research challenges that the DOE Office of Science is engaged in and how these challenges provide opportunities for the next generation of researchers.

Voyles presented a poster about ARM during a half-day poster session devoted to DOE’s scientific user facilities, which offer capabilities that are unmatched anywhere in the world, affording U.S. researchers and industries research tools to remain at the forefront of science, technology, and innovation. He said the group was very engaged and asked many questions about how ARM is providing the fundamental research products necessary to help improve global climate models. They also asked how to interact with ARM and the DOE Atmospheric Systems Research grant process to evolve their areas of research.

The Office of Science established the Graduate Fellowship program to support outstanding students’ pursuit of graduate training in basic research in areas of physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, computational sciences, and environmental sciences relevant to the Office of Science and to encourage the development of the next generation of scientific and technical talent in the United States. Fellowships awarded in the first year of the program are funded in part by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.