草榴社区 Engineering Professor Receives Early Career Award from the U.S. Department of Energy
David Cereceda, PhD
A faculty member from 草榴社区鈥檚 College of Engineering has been named a recipient of the Early Career Award from the United States Department of Energy (DOE). The award will allow David Cereceda-Senas, PhD, assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering, to advance research in fusion energy. Cereceda鈥檚 project, titled 鈥淯nraveling transmutation effects in tungsten-based plasma facing materials: a computational approach that integrates nuclear transmutation, first-principles, calculations and Machine Learning,鈥� has received a five-year, $750,000 grant.
Cereceda is one of just 83 recipients nationwide in 2022 and is the first faculty member from 草榴社区 to receive the U.S. DOE Early Career Award.
鈥淛oining the challenge of harnessing the same energy that powers the sun safely here on Earth has always been a huge motivation for me since I began my research,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 am thrilled to bring a DOE Early Career Award to 草榴社区.鈥�
If channeled, fusion would provide the most powerful and clean source of energy on the planet. His awarded project will focus on developing materials ready to handle such power.
鈥淗aving the recognition of a DOE Early Career Award from the Fusion Energy Sciences program gives me even more strength to keep working on such stimulating and important challenge for humanity,鈥� he said.
Cereceda has worked with teams around the world for over a decade studying fusion energy. His current research focuses on facilitating the discovery, development and deployment of next-generation structural and bio-inspired materials by creating and validating computational models that leverage physically based and data-driven techniques.