ORISE announces winners of inaugural Future of Science Awards to celebrate its 30th anniversary

To honor the 30th anniversary of the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, the organization announced the winners of its inaugural Future of Science Awards. These prestigious awards recognize excellence performed by ORISE participants in the areas of scientific achievement, professional growth, project contributions and leadership in three categories: undergraduate and post-baccalaureate, graduate student and post-master’s, and postdoctoral. Each winner will receive $1,000 cash and recognition from ORISE.

ORISE Director Jim Vosburg presented the 2022 ORISE Future of Science Awards during a virtual ceremony to the following ORISE participant winners:

Brooke Vollmer - Undergraduate Student and Post-Baccalaureate Award

Brooke Vollmer is an ORISE fellow in the Research Branch at the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory (NPPTL), which is a division within the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), located in Pittsburgh. Vollmer received her Bachelor of Science degree in biology from the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown in Spring 2020. Throughout her education, she gained her research experience at NIOSH/NPPTL, first as a summer intern (2019) and regular fellow (2020-2021) prior to beginning her ORISE journey (2021-present) with her mentor, Michael Bergman. Vollmer has contributed to an abundance of research projects within her division and by representing NIOSH/NPPTL in research collaborations with outside organizations. She has focused her efforts on research that looks into understanding the factors that affect respirator performance, such as fit and filtration efficiency. This research helps to protect workers worldwide who rely on respirators to prevent occupational disease and illness.

Ryan Corey - Postdoctoral Award

Ryan Corey is an Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellow conducting research with Professor Andrew Singer in the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He received his Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree from Princeton University and his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, all in electrical engineering. A hearing aid user since he was a teenager, Corey’s research focuses on signal processing strategies to help people hear better in noisy environments. In particular, he is developing systems that allow multiple sensors and audio devices to work together to improve performance in adverse environments. Since 2017, he has mentored a team of engineering, design and business students in the Illinois Augmented Listening Laboratory, which explores applications of large-scale microphone arrays and acoustic sensor networks. Corey has received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant, the Microsoft Artificial Intelligence for Accessibility Award, and the Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. He was also awarded the Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics 2019 Best Student Paper Award and the 179th Acoustical Society of America Meeting Best Student Paper Award.

Geneva Gray - Graduate Student and Post-Master’s Award

Geneva Gray is a doctoral candidate in Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina State University and a current ORISE participant with her mentor, Tanya Spero, at the Environmental Protection Agency. She studies how extreme precipitation events change under future warming conditions using stakeholder-driven case studies and extreme value analysis. Geneva holds two Bachelor of Science degrees in Meteorology and Environmental Sciences and a master’s degree in Atmospheric Science, where she studied quantitative methods on climate model ensemble selection. She is a former U.S. Geological Survey Global Change Fellow and Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network Fellow. Geneva started her career in 2012 as an environmental meteorologist at the North Carolina State Climate Office where she learned how to build impact-driven research projects and how to communicate those results to the general public. Her career goal is to lead actionable climate science for a resilient future. 

For more information, and to watch for information regarding next year’s Future of Science Awards in spring 2023, visit ORISE Future of Science Awards.