Welch earns DOE award for dissertation research

Photo Credit: Ethan Welch
Fri, 06/09/2023 - 16:24

Graduate student Ethan Welch has earned a Department of Energy Office of Science Graduate Student Research Program award to conduct doctoral dissertation research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He is one of two University of Nebraska–Lincoln students and among 87 graduate students from across the U.S.

Currently in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Nebraska, Welch will work in the Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)-Discovery Plasma Science program under LLNL’s Roni Shepherd of the Physics Division.

It is an honor to be selected for the SCGSR fellowship,” Welch said. “I am excited to finally try my hand at a national lab and to work more with Ronnie Shepherd. I am very grateful to my advisers Matthias Fuchs and Bedros Afeyan for helping me throughout the application process.”

His goal is to develop a large time bandwidth product single shot plasma diagnostic. He started working in the field of high energy plasma physics after earning his bachelor's degree.

"The field is on the cusp of many beneficial discoveries and applications that I want to be a part of," he said. "My hope is that, as part of this fellowship, I will contribute to those discoveries while developing the necessary skillset to be successful in this field.”