Sandia Labs FY22 Laboratory Directed Research & Development Annual Report

Early Career Awards and Honors FOUR SANDIA RESEARCHERS RECEIVE DOE OFFICE OF SCIENCE’S EARLY CAREER RESEARCH AWARDS.

The DOE Office of Science has selected four Sandia researchers to receive Early Career Research Awards this year. Krupa Ramasesha, Pete Bosler, Tim Proctor, and Andy Mounce will receive up to $500,000 per year for five years to advance their research. The program, now in its 13th year, is designed to provide support to researchers during their early career years, when many scientists do their formative work. In 2022, the DOE awarded 83 scientists nationwide, including 27 from national laboratories.

KRUPA RAMASESHA is an experimental physical chemist with expertise in ultrafast laser spectroscopy and chemical dynamics. She has led two LDRDs during her Sandia tenure, most recently a project to detect short-lived intermediates in catalytic transformations using table-top extreme ultraviolet

PETE BOSLER is an applied mathematician focused on developing numerical methods and software for coupled multi-physics problems. He is currently a team member of the climate

focused CLDERA Grand Challenge, investigating

Krupa Ramasesha earned a 2022 DOE Early Career Research Award.

Sandia applied mathematician Pete

computational relationships in the form pathways between climate sources and impacts. With his DOE award, Bosler

Bosler moves fluidly with help from very fine data sets. (Photo by Craig Fritz)

radiation. She will use her award to develop a fundamental understanding of the electronic interactions between molecules and metallic nanoparticles. TIM PROCTOR , PI of the

hopes to improve accuracy of simulations in complex domains like climate and plasmas by developing new algorithms that can resolve a broad range of scales through intelligent heuristic model selection.

LDRD project “Capabilities of a Quantum Computer,” was awarded was awarded a DOE Advanced Scientific Computing Research Early Career Award project based on his recent research within this LDRD. His Early Career project “Quantum Capability Learning,” will (1) measure how well a quantum computer runs a specific

ANDY MOUNCE specializes in making microscopic sensors to try to understand the nature of quantum materials and their electrons’ behavior. He recently completed an LDRD project focused on establishing the technological foundation for a new class of solid-state, quantum light emitters in III-nitride

Quantum physicist Tim Proctor is a recent recipient of a DOE Early Career Research Award.

Andy Mounce makes microscopic sensors to try to understand quantum materials. He is also a recent recipient of a DOE Early Career Research Award.

program and (2) predict what novel programs it will or will not be able to run. This research will make it possible to understand the capabilities of quantum computing hardware, and to make best use of each particular quantum computer’s strengths.

semiconductors. With his DOE Early Career Award, Mounce hopes to understand the topological phase transitions of quantum materials by levering diamond quantum sensors.

99

LABORATORY DIRECTED RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT