PNNL-WSU Distinguished Graduate Research Program

Program overview

Washington state is home to several research institutions, and Washington State University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are paving the way in clean energy, smart manufacturing, sustainability, and national security innovation. And they’re seeking fresh minds. Through the PNNL-WSU Distinguished Graduate Research Program (DGRP), Ph.D. students will earn a stipend along with benefits, funded by their WSU and PNNL advisors, while working under a prestigious graduate committee on nationally relevant research. It is a unique opportunity to tap into the knowledge and world-class research infrastructure available at both institutions.

DGRP students will work with faculty at WSU and scientists at PNNL while completing their graduate coursework and subsequently transfer to PNNL for the remaining years of their PhD program to gain hands-on research experience with PNNL scientists. Research opportunities include but are not limited to the following areas:

• Radiochemistry
• Electric power and Smart Grid
• Biofuels, bio-products, and catalysis
• Environmental, water and soil science and engineering
• Current and past areas of research can be found here

Recent DGRP Publications

Publication Year	Title	Journal/Conference/Book Chapter	DGRP Student(s), Cohort	Lead/Co-Author
2022	Current Status and Prospects of Valorizing Organic Waste via Arrested Anaerobic Digestion: Production and Separation of Volatile Fatty Acids	Fermentation	Anthony Tushar Giduthuri, C4	Lead
2022	Dynamic Community Detection Decouples Multiple Time Scale Behavior of Complex Chemical Systems	Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation	Nitesh Kumar, C3	Co-Author
2022	Molecular structural dataset of lignin macromolecule elucidating experimental structural compositions	Scientific Data	Sudha Eswaran, C2	Lead
2022	Advancing biological processing for valorization of plastic wastes	Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews	Austin Gluth, C5*; Zhangyang Xu, C2	Lead*/Co-Author
2022	Improved valorization of sewage sludge in the circular economy by anaerobic digestion: Impact of an innovative pretreatment technology	Waste Management	Anthony Tushar Giduthuri, C4	Co-Author
2022	Predicting infectious disease for biopreparedness and response: A systematic review of machine learning and deep learning approaches	One Health	Ravikiran Keshava Murthy, C5	Lead
2021	Essential Aspects of Solvent Effects and Solution Conditions upon the Modeling and Simulation of Lanthanide and Actinide Complexes	Rare Earth Elements and Actinides: Progress in Computational Science Applications (Chapter 12 pp 249-276)	Nitesh Kumar, C3	Lead
2021	Unexpected inverse correlations and cooperativity in ion-pair phase transfer	Chemical Science	Nitesh Kumar, C3	Lead
2021	Uranyl Speciation in the Presence of Specific Ion Gradients at the Electrolyte/Organic Interface	Solvent Extraction and Ion Exchange	Nitesh Kumar, C3	Lead
2021	Proteomic Approaches for Advancing the Understanding and Application of Oleaginous Bacteria for Bioconversion of Lignin to Lipids	Lignin Utilization Strategies: From Processing to Applications (Chapter 4 pp 61-96)	Xiaolu Li, C2*; Zhangyang Xu, C2; Austin Gluth, C5	Lead*/Co-Authors
2021	Characterization of cellular oxidative stress response by stoichiometric redox proteomics	Am J Physiol Cell Physiol	Xiaolu Li, C2	Co-Author
2021	Transactive Implementation of Decentralized Electricity Market for Grid-Edge Systems	2021 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting (PESGM)	Monish Mukherjee, C3	Lead
2021	Stereological analysis of triple line orientations	IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering	Benjamin Schuessler, C2	Lead
2021	Enhancement of polyhydroxyalkanoate production by co-feeding lignin derivatives with glycerol in Pseudomonas putida KT2440	Biotechnology for Biofuels	Zhangyang Xu, C2	Lead
2020	Activity-Based Protein Profiling of Chitin Catabolism	ChemBioChem	Elias Zegeye, C2	Lead
2020	Reaction heterogeneity in practical high-energy lithium–sulfur pouch cells	Energy and Environmental Science	Shuo Feng, C2	Co-Author
2020	Understanding the Deactivation of Ag−ZrO2/SiO2 Catalysts for the Single-step Conversion of Ethanol to Butenes	The European Society Journal for Catalysis	Austin Winkelman, C1	Co-Author
2020	The role of surface hydroxyls on the radiolysis of gibbsite and boehmite nanoplatelets	Journal of Hazardous Materials	Austin Winkelman, C1	Co-Author
2020	Influence of Ag metal dispersion on the thermal conversion of ethanol to butadiene over Ag-ZrO2/SiO2 catalysts	Journal of Catalysis	Austin Winkelman, C1	Co-Author
2020	Single-Step Conversion of Ethanol to n-Butene over Ag-ZrO2/SiO2 Catalysts	ACS Catalysis	Austin Winkelman, C1	Co-Author
2020	Triethanolamine-Mediated Covalent Adaptable Epoxy Network: Excellent Mechanical Properties, Fast Repairing, and Easy Recycling	Macromolecules	Cheng Hao, C2	Lead
2020	Ethanol as a Renewable Building Block for Fuels and Chemicals	Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research	Austin Winkelman, C1	Co-Author
2020	Competitive Interactions at Electrolyte/Octanol Interfaces: A Molecular Perspective	The Journal of Physical Chemistry	Nitesh Kumar, C3	Lead
2019	Discovery of potential pathways for biological conversion of poplar wood into lipids by co-fermentation of Rhodococci strains	Biotechnology for Biofuels and Bioproducts	Xiaolu Li, C2*; Zhangyang Xu, C2	Lead*/Co-Author
2019	Direct Observation of the Orientational Anisotropy of Buried Hydroxyl Groups inside Muscovite Mica	Journal of the American Chemical Society	Austin Winkelman, C1	Co-Author