Wright Lab DOE Research Traineeship for Diversity in Nuclear Physics

Overview

From 2022-24, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) awarded support for a pilot Research Traineeship for Diversity in Nuclear Physics program at Wright Lab for undergraduates and recent college graduates to gain hands-on research experience before graduate school. The traineeship was aimed at training and retaining a diverse cohort of next-generation scientists as future nuclear physicists and leaders in science. 

Program activities included:

• hands-on research experiences
• mentoring from Yale researchers
• training workshops
• immersion in the Wright Lab and Yale research communities
• networking with the national nuclear physics community
• opportunities to participate in and/or lead outreach activities

Flyer (PDF)

Traineeship program contacts

	Karsten Heeger Professor of Physics, Chair of Yale Physics, Director of Wright Lab	karsten.heeger@yale.edu
	Reina Maruyama Professor of Physics & Astronomy	reina.maruyama@yale.edu
	Victoria Misenti Program Manager	victoria.misenti@yale.edu

Fellows

More about the DOE Research Traineeships to Broaden and Diversify Nuclear Physics (TBD-NP)

This pilot program is intended to support training and research experiences for members of underserved communities with the goal of increasing the likelihood that participants from underrepresented populations, such as those present at minority serving institutions (MSIs), will pursue a career in a Science, Technology, Engineering or Math (STEM) related field, particularly in Nuclear Physics. This program is informed and influenced by the recommendations in recent reports, including the American Institute of Physics TEAM-UP report.

The DOE’s Office of Nuclear Physics’ (NP) mission is to discover, explore, and understand all forms of nuclear matter and the evolution and underlying structure of our universe. NP supports a wide range of activities including experimental, theoretical, and computational research along with the development and operation of particle accelerators and advanced technologies. The ability of NP to fulfill this mission relies on the availability of a highly trained, diverse community of investigators, researchers, students and staff that provide great benefit to the nation broadly by contributing to and advancing fields such as medicine, national security, industry, and finance. Historically, the NP community has been drawn primarily from a pool of potential talent that is less diverse than the general U.S. population. It is the goal of this program to help broaden and diversify the NP community, to ensure that it is drawn from the broadest possible pool of potential nuclear physicists within the U.S., and to thereby help ensure the success of the NP mission.