2 Fermilab scientists receive DOE Early Career Research Awards

The Department of Energy’s Office of Science has selected two Fermilab scientists to receive the 2021 DOE Early Career Research Award, now in its 12th year. The prestigious award is designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the crucial early years, when many scientists do their most formative work.

This year, 83 scientists from across the nation — representing 11 DOE national laboratories and 41 U.S. universities in 32 states— have been selected to receive funding as part of DOE’s Early Career Research Program.

“Maintaining our nation’s braintrust of world-class scientists and researchers is one of DOE’s top priorities — and that means we need to give them the resources they need to succeed early on in their careers,” said Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “These awardees show exceptional potential to help us tackle America’s toughest challenges and secure our economic competitiveness for decades to come.”

Under the program, researchers based at DOE national laboratories will receive grants for $500,000 per year. The research grants are planned for five years and will cover salary and research expenses.

The Fermilab recipients are:

Farah Fahim, for front-end implementation of AI-machine learning neural networks for on-detector radiation-hard edge compute

Brian Nord, for simulation-based inference for cosmological parameter estimation and discovery

Portrait of a woman smiling beside a microscope in front of a purple background. Her right hand sits on a table and is holding a chip. She wears a mustard-colored floral hijab and fuschia top.

Farah Fahim

Portrait of a man with dark curly hair and a short beard and mustache wearing glasses, a brown corduroy jacket, a red and blue plaid shirt. His hands are interlaced on the table in front of him. In the lower left corner, the keyboard of a laptop peeks out. He is in front of a starry background.

Brian Nord

Profiles on these individuals and their research will be published over the next few weeks.

Fermilab is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.