Nathan Borak, graduate student in physics, has been awarded a United States Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science Graduate Student Research Program (SCGSR) grant from the program’s 2023 Solicitation 2 cycle. Borak is in the research group of Keith Baker, D. Allan Bromley Professor of Physics and a member of Yale’s Wright Lab.
The SCGSR program provides supplemental funds for graduate awardees to conduct part of their thesis research at a host DOE laboratory/facility in collaboration with a DOE laboratory scientist. SCGSR awardees work on research projects of significant importance to the Office of Science mission that address critical energy, environmental, and nuclear challenges at national and international scales. Borak will be working at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) with Dmitri Kharzeev studying thermalization effects in quantum field theory, particularly as applied to hadronic transverse-momentum distributions measured at particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider.
“The graduate student research program is a unique opportunity for graduate students to complete their Ph.D. training with teams of world-class experts aiming to answer some of the most challenging problems in fundamental science,” said Harriet Kung, acting director of the DOE Office of Science. “Gaining access to cutting edge tools for scientific discovery at DOE national laboratories will be instrumental in preparing the next generation of scientific leaders.”
Borak was one of 86 graduate students—representing 31 U.S. states and Puerto Rico—selected for the SCGSR for this cycle. Awardees were selected from a diverse pool of applicants from institutions around the country, based on merit review by external scientific experts. A full list of the awardees and more information about the program can be found at the SCGSR website.
Borak said, “I’m incredibly grateful for this opportunity and the mentorship I’ve received from Keith Baker, who encouraged me to apply to this program.”