Above: DOE Early Career Research Program Awardees. Top row: Berkeley Lab scientists Laura Lammers (EESA), Simon Roux, and Tong Zhou. Bottom row: Faculty scientists Kwabena Bediako, Heather Gray, and Trevor Keenan (EESA).
The DOE program, now in its 11th year, 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. The three Berkeley Lab recipients are among 76 recipients selected this year, including 26 from DOE’s national laboratories.
Laura Lammers is a faculty scientist in the Energy Geosciences Division, and an assistant professor in UC Berkeley’s department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management. Her research focuses on identifying and understanding the physiochemical processes at the interface of mineral surfaces and complex aqueous fluids that govern natural geochemical processes. Applications include: contaminant sequestration, crystallization, and selective element recovery.Her award is for her work on “Illuminating the Molecular Pathways of Trace Element Incorporation During Crystal Growth.” The project will identify the impact of impurities on mineral formation to inform novel crystallization methods that are critical to advancing energy and water technologies.
EESA Faculty Scientist Trevor Keenan, an assistant professor in environmental science, policy, and management at UC Berkeley, received the award for research on “Extreme Drought, Heat, and Wildfire Impacts on Coastal Water Relations.” This project will seek to understand the impact of co-occurring and compounding climate extremes, for example extreme precipitation and wind, on ecosystem water use, streamflow, and water resources.
Keenan’s body of work combines large ecological data sets (e.g., eddy-covariance, remote sensing), models of ecosystem state and function, and data assimilation/mining tools, with results from in-situ field studies and experiments, to gain a mechanistic understanding of key physical and biological processes.
The scientists are each expected to receive grants of up to $2.5 million over five years to cover salary and research expenses.
A complete list of this year’s ECRP awardees is available on the Office of Science website. More information about Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley recipients can be found here.