Each year, the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico receives atmospheric dust transported all the way from Africa. These mineral-enriched tiny dust particles can have important implications. They impact everything from clouds and ecosystems to the ocean biota and the regional climate and air quality in the Great Caribbean Basin. Located on the island is the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras (UPRRP), which serves as an excellent natural laboratory to study the atmospheric dust and its interactions with human and Earth systems.
Leveraging their expertise in the environmental sciences, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and UPRRP are partnering to build capacity in the university’s Environmental Sciences Program. The three institutions will also engage minority students that are largely underrepresented in the atmospheric and Earth system sciences workforce. More than 95% of UPRRP’s student body is Hispanic. The four-year project is one of the four awards selected by the Biological and Environmental Research program in DOE’s Office of Science as part of DOE’s first Reaching a New Energy Sciences Workforce (RENEW) Initiative, which officially got underway in January 2023.
“We are excited to help prepare the undergraduate and graduate students at University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras for careers where they can contribute to and address the science challenges of DOE sciences.” — Yan Feng, Argonne principal atmospheric and climate scientist
The RENEW initiative aims to support historically underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and diversify American leadership in energy and climate. It supports internships, training programs and mentor opportunities at historically black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions.
“The two national laboratories bring significant expertise to this collaboration. Argonne is bringing to the table our work on the aerosol and Earth system modeling. Brookhaven is bringing their strong experience in atmospheric aerosol and cloud measurements. We are excited to help prepare the undergraduate and graduate students at UPRRP, a minority-serving institution that is predominantly Hispanic, for careers where they can contribute to and address the science challenges of DOE programs,” said Yan Feng, a principal atmospheric and climate scientist from Argonne’s Environmental Science division.
The program’s primary goal is to attract more students to the Environmental Sciences Program at UPRRP and promote aerosol and atmospheric science research at the university. Together, the partners will create a pipeline to bring underrepresented minority students in higher education into the new energy workforce. Through hands-on experiences, they hope to open new career avenues for talented young scientists, engineers and technicians.
Researchers from Argonne and Brookhaven will visit the university once a year to teach weeklong workshops and help with setting up the observational site. They will also assist faculty in designing two new courses. One course will cover aerosol modeling and data science, while the other will focus on atmospheric aerosol instruments. The researchers will also be guest lecturers in these two new courses with the hopes of getting students involved in research and to assist in developing their masters’ theses and Ph.D. projects.
Students will be encouraged to visit both Argonne and Brookhaven for internships and fellowships, as well as for the opportunity to use DOE Office of Science user facilities at both laboratories.
“We plan to introduce the students and faculty to the DOE high performance computing capabilities at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, and to the Advanced Photon Source for imaging particles. We will also train students to operate the instruments and use the long-term atmospheric datasets available at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement user facility,” explained Feng. “The UPRRP faculty and students are excited for the opportunity to have hands on experience at these world-class facilities.”
Applications for the second round (in FY2023) of funding for DOE RENEW is open now until April and May 2023. Funding for the RENEW Initiative comes from the DOE Office of Science.
The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement user facility is a DOE Office of Science scientific user facility operated by nine DOE national laboratories, including Argonne National Laboratory.
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