Caitlin McCormick, graduate research assistant at FRIB, has earned a three-year fellowship from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program. NSF provides an annual stipend of $37,000 to each recipient. The foundation provides up to $16,000 for tuition and fees as well.
McCormick’s research aims to enhance our knowledge of processes that compete with superheavy element formation. These processes include fission and quasi-fission. She plans to finish her degree and earn her PhD with the funding provided by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Her goal is to work in nuclear security at a Department of Energy national laboratory.
“I am extremely excited for Caitlin and very proud of her accomplishment,” said Kyle Brown, assistant professor of chemistry at FRIB and McCormick’s advisor. “As a previous NSF Graduate Research Fellow myself, it was doubly exciting to see my first graduate student receive the fellowship as well. Caitlin worked very hard on her application, and now she can enjoy the rewards of that hard work.”
McCormick is a part of FRIB’s nuclear reactions group. She is preparing to use the radioactive calcium-49 beam available at FRIB to investigate entrance channel effects on the formation of compound nuclei. This work includes developing a new detector array with improved position resolution and durability compared to detectors used in similar experiments.
McCormick’s research is of fundamental interest to the nuclear reactions community, Brown said. It provides experimental data to theories regarding the interaction between beam and target and its influence on the outcome of the reaction. Her research could also guide the search for new superheavy elements. It may also contribute to the creation of new isotopes of existing superheavy elements.
McCormick said that FRIB is a great community to conduct her research. “The scientific and educational opportunities are among the best and most diverse in the world,” she said. “But it is the people who work here who make that possible. Everyone, including other graduate students, professors, and staff, are very kind, patient, and committed to the education of graduate students like me and of the general public through outreach.”
In addition to McCormick, Monika Fouad, an incoming graduate student who will begin attending MSU and conducting research at FRIB this summer, was also awarded a fellowship from NSF.
Michigan State University (MSU) operates the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) as a user facility for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC), supporting the mission of the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics. User facility operation is supported by the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics as one of 28 DOE-SC user facilities.
The U.S. Department of Energy 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 today’s most pressing challenges. For more information, visit energy.gov/science.