5 Idaho graduates awarded prestigious fellowship from INL

The following is a news release from Idaho National Laboratory.

IDAHO FALLS – Idaho National Laboratory awarded prestigious INL Graduate Fellowships to 12 students from universities throughout the U.S. These students will become the third cohort of INL Graduate Fellows.

Recipients of these competitive fellowships have their tuition and fees covered by their university during their first years of graduate school (years one to three). Their tuition and fees plus a $60,000 annual salary are paid by INL during the last two years of their doctoral research performed at the lab.

In the first years of their Ph.D. program, graduate fellows will spend most of their time taking classes at their university. That balance will shift in the last years of their Ph.D. program, where graduate fellows will spend the majority of their time at INL conducting research. The typical graduate fellowship program runs between three and five years.

There are mutual benefits for the graduate fellows, universities and the lab. Throughout the program, the graduate fellows will interact and collaborate with both their INL mentor and their university thesis adviser.

The program allows INL to integrate students into the laboratory and provides graduate fellows with work on significant projects that will help them fulfill their thesis research requirements. INL gains access to skilled staff, along with the opportunity to build long-term collaborations with universities, increase recruiting opportunities, and interact with a continuous pipeline of students interning and conducting research at the lab. Both the university and INL have the opportunity for joint publications and intellectual property.

“INL graduate fellowships offer huge opportunities for everyone involved,” said Michelle Thiel Bingham, INL’s University Partnerships director. “Universities gain a window into INL research, students are provided an amazing research experience while pursuing their education and INL researchers get fresh perspectives from the graduate fellows. The end result is the laboratory strengthens its partnerships with universities while continuing to develop the next generation.”

Graduate fellows were selected in degree fields that closely tie to INL’s three mission areas of innovative nuclear energy solutions, other clean energy options and critical infrastructure.

Congratulations to the following students who were selected as the third cohort of INL Graduate Fellows:

The next call for graduate fellows will begin in fall 2019 and is open to all universities. For more information about the program, contact Ali Josephson at (208) 526-0940, Michelle Thiel Bingham at (208) 526-7830 or visit inl.gov/education.