The Future is Fusion

Materials Science Professor Awarded DOE Early Career Award to Advance Alternative Energy Solutions

The College of Engineering and Applied Sciences is proud to announce that Jason Trelewicz, PhD, has received the prestigious Early Career Research award from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Professor Trelewicz will receive a total of $750K over five years to develop his project:  “Enhancing the Performance of Plasma-facing Materials Through Solute-stabilized Nanostructured Tungsten Alloys.”  

The Department of Energy Early Career Research Program supports the development of individual research programs of outstanding scientists in their early careers. To be eligible, researchers must be untenured, tenure-track assistant or associate professor at a U.S. academic institution, and received a PhD within the last 10 years.

“The DOE Early Career award is among the most distinguished honors a faculty scientist can achieve,” said Samuel L. Stanley Jr., MD, President of Stony Brook University. “Professor Trelewicz’s work expands our research portfolio in clean energy technologies and advances Stony Brook’s contributions for the emergence of fusion as an abundant source of carbon-free energy and embodies the big ideas that we apply to the STEM fields here at Stony Brook."

Nanostructured tungsten-titanium alloy irradiated with high-energy gold ions to explore the radiation tolerance of novel structural materials for future fusion reactors

An assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and director of the Engineered Metallic Nanostructures Laboratory, Professor Trelewicz is also an affiliate faculty member of the Institute for Advanced Computational Science, and director of the NYSTAR-funded High Performance Computing Consortium at Stony Brook University.

Primary cascade event during the impact of a high energy atom in tungsten that displaces atoms from their parent lattice sites in turn producing a pressure wave that propagates through the material

“We are exploring solutions to harness fusion as a sustainable energy technology, specifically addressing the grand challenge of developing state-of-the-art materials needed to build the reactor,” Trelewicz said.   He added that fusion would provide a safe, large-scale energy source that doesn’t emit carbon dioxide or produce long-term radioactive waste.  

Research topics are required to fall within one of the Office of Science’s six major program offices: Advanced Scientific Computer Research, Biological and Environmental Research, Basic Energy Sciences, Fusion Energy Sciences, High Energy Physics, or Nuclear Physics. Awardees are selected from a national pool of university and national laboratory-based applications, based on peer review from outside scientific experts.

“We are very proud of Jason’s extraordinary honor, as the DOE Early Career Award is testament to his marvelous professional trajectory,” said Michael A. Bernstein, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Stony Brook University.  “We look forward to the critical contributions that Jason will make in sustainable energy research.

“Professor Trelewicz’s break-through research into alternative energy embodies our core mission to develop sustainable, transformative solutions that are relevant to today’s global challenges,” said Fotis Sotiropoulos, Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Professor Trelewicz received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering in 2008 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before joining Stony Brook in 2012, Trelewicz spent four years as Research Director at MesoScribe Technologies, Inc., where he managed technology development and transition with a focus on harsh environment sensors produced by additive manufacturing processes.  Today, his research focuses on the design, synthesis, stability, and performance of interface engineered alloys through coupled simulations and experiments. Trelewicz is a recipient of the 2016 NSF Career Award and the 2015 TMS Young Leader Professional Development Award.