Caltech Faculty Receive Early Career Grants

Four Caltech faculty members are among the 65 scientists from across the nation selected to receive five-year Early Career Research Awards from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The grant winners, who were selected from a pool of about 1,150 applicants, are:

• Guillaume Blanquart, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, who will develop a chemical model of the inner structure and of the formation of soot particles—black carbon particles formed during the incomplete combustion of hydrocarbon fuels that can cause health problems and adverse effects on the environment—that will aid the development of models that predict emissions from car and truck engines, aircraft engines, fires, and more.
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• Julia R. Greer, assistant professor of materials science and mechanics, who will use nanomechanical experimental and computational tools to isolate and understand the role of specific tailored interfaces and deformation mechanisms on the degradation of properties of materials subjected to helium irradiation. Elucidating these mechanisms will provide insight into requirements for advanced materials for current and next-generation nuclear reactors.
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• Chris Hirata, assistant professor of astrophysics, who will be conducting theoretical studies of cosmological observables—such as galaxy clustering—that are being used to probe dark energy and dark matter and to search for gravitational waves from inflation.
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• Ryan Patterson, assistant professor of physics, who will develop new techniques for readout, calibration, and particle identification for the NOvA long-baseline neutrino experiment at Fermilab, which will investigate neutrino oscillations—the conversion of neutrinos of one type (or "flavor") into another.

The Early Career Research Program, which is funded by the DOE's Office of Science, 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," according to the DOE announcement, and is intended to encourage scientists to focus on research areas that are considered high priorities for the Department of Energy.

To be eligible for an award, a researcher must have received a doctorate within the past 10 years and be an untenured, tenure-track assistant or associate professor at a U.S. academic institution or a full-time employee at a DOE national laboratory.