Penn State student to serve at Lab as part of DOE Graduate Student Research Program

Penn State graduate student Joseph Mattocks has been selected to serve at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as part of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) Program.

Mattocks will serve in LLNL's Nuclear and Chemical Sciences Division.

“I feel both honored and grateful to have been given this opportunity to pursue a portion of my graduate research at a distinguished institution within our country’s national lab system,” Mattocks said. "I am originally from California, so I am also excited to be returning to my home state.”

Mattocks’ focus area will include investigating various strategically re-engineered proteins for their ability to bind uranyl in solution, with the ultimate goal of developing a system that is capable of quantitatively and selectively extracting uranium from low grade sources. 

Through world-class training and access to state-of-the-art facilities and resources at DOE national laboratories, SCGSR prepares graduate students to enter jobs of critical importance to the DOE mission and secures the national position at the forefront of discovery and innovation.

“DOE has long been where the nation turns for scientific solutions to complex challenges, and now more than ever we need to invest in a diverse, talented pipeline of scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs who can continue this legacy of excellence,” said Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. “I’m thrilled that these outstanding students will help us tackle mission-critical research at our labs, and I can’t wait to see what their futures hold.”

This year’s 78 awardees were selected from a diverse pool of graduate applicants from institutions around the country. Selection was based on merit peer review by external scientific experts. Since 2014, the SCGSR program has provided more than 700 U.S. graduate awardees from 150 universities with supplemental funds to conduct part of their thesis research at a host DOE laboratory in collaboration with a DOE laboratory scientist. In this cohort of awardees, three are the first SCGSR awardee to come from their institution, and more than 19 percent attend minority serving institutions.

SCGSR awardees work on research projects of significant importance to the Office of Science mission that address societal challenges at national and international scale.

A list of the 78 awardees, their institutions, host DOE laboratory/facility and priority research areas of projects can be found on the web.

Visit the web for more information on SCGSR.