NRT-DESE: Data-Enabled Discovery and Design of Energy Materials

Abstract

NRT-DESE: Data-Enabled Discovery and Design of Energy Materials (D3EM)

Accelerating the discovery of new materials that enable transformative technologies is needed to transform the nation's energy landscape. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award will create and institutionalize a new training model at Texas A&M University that equips Master?s and doctoral students with the skills to advance research at the interface of materials science, informatics, and engineering design. The traineeship addresses the data-enabled science and engineering research priority theme and tackles three main challenges: 1) the need to accelerate materials discovery and development, particularly in energy-related technologies; 2) the need to instill in scientists and engineers the capability to transform data into knowledge, and use this knowledge to discover and design advanced materials; and 3) the need to educate scientists and engineers who internalize the interdisciplinary research process. The project anticipates preparing eighty (80) master?s and doctoral students, including forty-one (41) funded trainees, through an interdisciplinary curriculum in materials science, design, and informatics enriched with energy and entrepreneurship-related courses and activities.

This traineeship will involve faculty from two colleges and six departments with expertise in materials science, engineering design, and informatics as well as in graduate education and curriculum development. The program will closely align the desired technical and professional skills, curriculum innovations, and learning outcomes. The pedagogical model will include mediated, relational, situated and transformative components. Collaboration will be embedded throughout the program, particularly in the development of learning communities, internships, and the capstone Materials Design Studio. This traineeship will equip graduate students with the necessary knowledge and experience, interdisciplinary focus, and technical and professional skills (including communication, collaboration, leadership) to thrive in a range of career options including industry, academia, and national research laboratories. It will also equip entrepreneurship-minded trainees with the knowledge and experience necessary to pursue deployment and commercialization of technologies generated from their research. The program will contain strong education research and rigorous evaluation components, which will enable refinement of effective and novel approaches and dissemination of the training model to the wider graduate education community.

The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, potentially transformative, and scalable 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.