PNNL

The Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced a total of $37 million in Funding for Accelerated, Inclusive Research (FAIR) to build research capacity in historically underrepresented institutions. Researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) will serve as the primary collaborators on six of those projects.

“FAIR is an essential, capacity-building initiative that will broaden the impact of DOE and the Office of Science in tackling critical and pressing scientific questions and challenges,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. “To reach our scientific goals, we need all voices represented at the table, including those who have been historically excluded from critical scientific conversations. This funding will help academic institutions expand their research portfolios and spur future scientific discovery, creating a top-notch workforce to advance American competitiveness.”

Diversity and inclusion are a key to PNNL’s research success. Fostering diverse, equitable, and impactful research partnerships plays a significant role in this.  

“At PNNL, we believe people are our strength. Building an inclusive and diverse workforce that supports our science mission is critical for the work we’re doing today and the impact we will make for tomorrow,” said Evangelina Shreeve, PNNL’s chief diversity officer and director of STEM Education. “Through opportunities such as FAIR, we are continuing to advance the science mission at PNNL and with the DOE, as well as championing the future diverse workforce of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals by creating more opportunities and access for historically underrepresented populations.” 

The six PNNL FAIR projects involve a variety of research disciplines, from chemistry to computational science. The six projects selected for funding are

• Performance and Scalability of Distributed Deep Learning, led by Shirley Moore (University of Texas at El Paso) in partnership with Joshua Suetterlein (PNNL)
• Structural Influences in Electrochemical Dehydrogenation of Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers, led by Elizabeth Biddinger (City University of New York - City College) in partnership with Juan Lopez Ruiz (PNNL)
• Intrinsically Porous Polyoxometalate-Based Frameworks for Critical Metal Recovery, led by Zhonghua Peng (University of Missouri, Kansas City) in partnership with Praveen Thallapally (PNNL)
• Advancing Atomistic Understanding of Electronic Energy Transfer, led by Liang Shi (University of California, Merced) in partnership with Britta Johnson (PNNL)
• Demonstration of Home-Grown Crystals for Future SuperCDMS Experiment (DHGC-FSE), led by Dongming Mei (University of South Dakota) in partnership with Francisco Ponce (PNNL) and
• An Evaporatively Cooled Beamline Technology for the Project 8 Atomic Tritium Source, led by Ben Jones (University of Texas at Arlington) in partnership with Brent VanDevender (PNNL).

PNNL supports diversity in STEM through a variety of other avenues as well, including DOE’s Visiting Faculty Program, multiple internship opportunities, and PNNL’s STEM Ambassadors program.