The Department of Energy recently announced that MSE Ph.D. candidates Marcel Chlupsa of the Shahani group, and Amanda Wang of the Kioupakis group, have been selected for its Office of Science Graduate Student Research program (SCGSR). The prestigious award provides graduate students from across the country the opportunity to conduct part of their thesis research at a DOE laboratory in collaboration with a DOE scientist.

Starting next month, Chlupsa will spend 12 months at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in Chicago to further research for his thesis “Visualizing grain, interface, and dislocation dynamics in shape memory alloys." Two months later, in August, Wang will head to California and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) to advance her research, which is focused on using first-principles computational methods to enhance the electronic and optoelectronic properties of semiconductors. 

At ANL, Chlupsa will assist in developing the Bragg Coherent Diffraction Imaging (BCDI) technique at the 1-ID and 20-ID HEXM beamlines.

"I will also contribute to combining tomographic imaging and high energy diffraction microscopy with BCDI so that the suite of techniques can be integrated into a unified probe," he added.

Using this probe, he will investigate how strain impacts grain growth in shape memory alloys (Cu-Al-Mn alloy) at multiple length scales.

“I'm excited about the opportunity to work at a national lab," Chlupsa commented, "especially as I’m looking into becoming a beamline scientist in the future. The chance to help establish advanced data acquisition and analysis platforms is a great step toward my career goals."

At LBNL, Wang will be working on incorporating the capabilities of the many-body perturbation theory code BerkeleyGW, which is developed at LBNL, with the code developed within her research group to calculate Auger-Meitner recombination from first principles. The goal is to improve the accuracy of the calculations of the rate of Auger-Meitner recombination by using a higher level of theory to treat dielectric screening. 

Wang's thesis centers on investigating the electronic and optoelectronic properties of semiconductors using first-principles computational methods. These methods, which include density functional theory, density functional perturbation theory, and many-body perturbation theory, allow researchers to predictively calculate materials properties and understand the atomistic mechanisms underlying them. Two properties of interest in her research are electronic transport, which determines the conductivity of a material, and Auger-Meitner recombination, a non-radiative recombination process that contributes to energy loss in optoelectronics.

"I am looking forward to learning about many-body perturbation theory from the experts at LBL, and getting to explore and work with the functionalities of the BerkeleyGW and Auger-Meitner recombination codes," said Wang. "I hope to gain a stronger understanding of both the concepts of many-body perturbation theory as well as how the concepts are implemented into software."

Chlupsa and Wang are among 79 graduate students who were selected this round to receive a DOE SCGSR. The selection committee noted that the award "is in recognition of outstanding academic accomplishments and the merit of the SCGSR research proposal, and reflects Marcel's and Amanda's potential to advance the Ph.D. studies and make important contributions to the mission of the DOE Office of Science."

Congratulations, Marcel and Amanda!