Berkeley Lab’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development program has informed recipients across the laboratory of new and renewed funding for their projects beginning in October. In EESA, Dan Feldman, Charlie Koven, Sebastien Uhlemann, and Curt Oldenburg will be receiving funding for new projects. Mengsu Hu, Romy Chakraborty, Ben Gilbert, and Pouya Vahmani will receive renewal funding for existing projects. Berkeley Lab will make a formal announcement of all recipients for FY21 in December.
Dan Feldman will receive LDRD funding for the project, “Systematic Studies to Characterize Errors in Atmospheric Forcing on Mountainous Watersheds.” Sebastien Uhlemann for “5G-enabled real-time, distributed sensing for critical infrastructure assessment.” Charlie Koven for “Exploring Wildfire Effects on Mountain Hydrology Using the FATES-SPITFIRE-Hillslope Model.” And a new hire on Curt Oldenburg’s team will be investigating, “Advancing Sustainable Utilization of the Subsurface.”
Berkeley Lab’s LDRD program exists because the United States Congress has allowed federal Laboratory Directors a limited amount of overhead funding for the purpose of seeding research and development projects. This rests on the belief that some of the most innovative and useful ideas might otherwise be unable to get the initial support, which is prerequisite to more standard funding sources.