Collaborative Research: NRT-DESE: Interdisciplinary Research Traineeships in Data-Enabled Science and Engineering of Atomic Structure

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In many important natural, synthetic and engineered materials, functionality and properties emerge at or below the nanoscale; however, quantifying atomic structure (i.e., local chemistry, bonding, atomic positions, spatial correlations and topology) in three-dimensions, through time and varying length scales, remains a challenge. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to North Carolina State University and North Carolina Central University will develop a new educational paradigm for Data-Enabled Science and Engineering of Atomic Structure (SEAS) to address the demand for a new generation of interdisciplinary, data-driven scientists who can apply advanced statistical methods to atomic-structure data generated from cutting-edge analytical and computational experiments. The research pioneered by these students will ultimately lead to a greater understanding of how the atomic structures of materials govern their physical properties (e.g. electronic, optical, mechanical). The project anticipates training at least forty (40) MS and PhD students over the five-year grant, including twenty (20) funded trainees, from materials science, physics, statistics and applied mathematics. With large investments in our national scientific infrastructure at both Federal laboratories and universities, a new and evolving generation of atomically sensitive instruments has opened new opportunities for next-generation science. Parallel to these developments in measurement sciences, great strides have been made in computational materials science, which are providing unprecedented opportunities for predictive materials design. The SEAS effort will develop a new graduate-training model, responding to the emergence and rapid growth of this critical interdisciplinary research at the interface of materials and data science and contributing directly and indirectly to the national Materials Genome Initiative (MGI), a multi-agency initiative spearheaded by the White House that advances the U.S. economy by enabling faster deployment of new materials. The SEAS traineeship program will immerse graduate students in a unique interdisciplinary curricular and research environment in which the trainees will be team-mentored by a diverse group of faculty and external industry and national laboratory scientists. The students will design professional development portfolios that will include laboratory rotations, interdisciplinary research group activities, internships, research training modules, communication training, and leadership-training activities. SEAS will promote and enhance diversity within the traineeship and larger professional community, and an integral part of the traineeship will be a bridge-to-the-PhD program across the partnering institutions aimed at better preparing underrepresented students to succeed in a research-intensive PhD program.The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The Traineeship Track is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary research areas, through the comprehensive traineeship model that is innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.