ORISE Future of Science Awards
We are proud to announce the third annual ORISE Future of Science Awards. These prestigious awards celebrate excellence performed by ORISE participants in the areas of scientific achievement, professional growth, project contributions, and leadership.
Overview
Eligibility: The individual must have been actively participating in an ORISE program for at least one day within the period of Aug. 1, 2023, through July 31, 2024. ORISE participants who are minors, high school students, faculty, or established scientists are not eligible for these awards.
Coming soon: Open Call for Nominations! Mentors and leaders at sponsoring organizations may nominate outstanding participants from May 1, 2024, through July 26, 2024. Be on the lookout for future ORISE communications with a link to the open nomination survey on May 1, 2024.
Awards will be announced by ORISE Director Dr. William J. (Jim) Vosburg during a Future of Science Awards presentation and virtual event on Sept. 18, 2024, 3:00-4:00 p.m. EST.
Participant prizes: A prize of $1,000 will be awarded to the selected nominee in each of the three categories:
- Undergraduate student and post-baccalaureate participants;
- Graduate student and post-master's participants; and
- Postdoctoral participants.
Inaugural mentor award: We are thrilled to announce an award which allows ORISE participants to recognize their exceptional mentors. Eligible mentors must have been an active ORISE mentor for at least one day within the period of Aug. 1, 2023, through July 31, 2024.
In addition, awardees will receive a personalized plaque and will be featured in future ORISE podcasts, social media, and feature articles. For more information, contact ExperienceORISE@orau.org.
2023 Award Winners
Winners of the second annual awards were announced on October 12, 2023
Ms. Annie Price is a researcher at the Air Force Research Laboratory, working within the
high-speed systems division. Her research focus is on ramjet inlet design and analysis. She graduated from Princeton University in May of 2022, with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree.
Air Force Institute of Technology Program
US Department of Defense
Dr. Jose A Camberos, mentor
Reese Tierney is an epidemiologist in the Enteric Diseases Epidemiology Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During her tenure in CDC’s ORISE Research Participation Program, Reese assisted CDC scientists with several high-priority projects, including the development foodborne illness source attribution estimates, investigation of disparities in foodborne illness, and analysis of social and environmental factors associated with salmonellosis. As a key member of the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration, Reese also collaborated with scientists in multiple federal agencies. Reese’s goal is to continue to build a career in public health with an emphasis on the epidemiology of foodborne, waterborne, environmental diseases. She holds a Bachelor of Science in public health from Georgia Southern University and a Master of Public Health in epidemiology from Georgia State University. In addition to her professional endeavors, Reese enjoys exploring the globe and spending time with family and friends.
National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Dr. Erica Rose, mentor
Jenny Paul is an ORISE Postdoctoral Fellow with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Gulf Ecosystem Measurement and Modeling Division in Gulf Breeze, FL and EPA’s Gulf of Mexico Division in Gulfport, MS. She received her PhD in Zoology from the Center for Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Aquatic Sciences from Southern Illinois University. As an ecotoxicologist, her work is focused on understanding how environmental stressors and pollution affect aquatic ecosystems. She was awarded National Science Foundation’s International Research Experience for Students (IRES) and Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) fellowships to pursue research in some of the most pristine and polluted systems on the planet, from mountain streams in Patagonia to large rivers of central Europe. Her specialty is benthic ecology, animals that live on the bottom of a water body, which are used as bioindicators of habitat health. At the EPA Jenny is developing rapid assessment tools using marine invertebrates to better assist natural resource managers and monitoring programs in the northern Gulf of Mexico. These include techniques like sediment profile imaging (SPI) which takes pictures that are later scored for animal activity, and approaches using environmental DNA to evaluate the benthic community. Additionally, she serves as a technical advisor to the Pensacola and Perdido Bays Estuary program including science advisor to the Oyster Committee and support for monitoring and environmental assessments. She is also an instructor for a liveaboard marine biology techniques course taught semester breaks through Southern Mississippi University and EPA’s GMD.
Gulf of Mexico Program Office
US Environmental Protection Agency
Dr. Janet Nestlerode, mentor
Watch the Ceremony
2022 Winners
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). 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. Read more about Vollmer and her research in her ORISE feature profile.
From the ORISE Featurecast
In this episode of the ORISE Featurecast, host Michael Holtz talks to Vollmer about her role at NIOSH, how she got interested in a career in STEM, and so much more. She 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). 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.
Geneva Gray is a doctoral candidate in Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina State University and a current ORISE participant 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. Gray 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. Gray 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 result to the general public. Her career goal is to lead actionable climate science for a resilient future. Gray was also an ORISE featured profile.
From the ORISE Featurecast
Geneva Gray, doctoral candidate in Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina State University and a current ORISE participant at the Environmental Protection Agency, was named the ORISE Future of Science Graduate Student and Post-Master's Award winner in 2022. She studies how extreme precipitation events change under future warming conditions using stakeholder-driven case studies and extreme value analysis. Gray 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. ORISE Featurecast host Michael Holtz talked with Gray about her award, her career, mentorship and what drove her interest in science.
Listen to this episode Transcript for this episode
Ryan Corey is an Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellow working 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. Read more at Corey's ORISE featured profile.
From the ORISE Featurecast
Ryan M. Corey is an ORISE Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellow working with Professor Andrew Singer in the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. As 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. Corey is the recipient of the inaugural ORISE Future of Science Postdoctoral Award, which he received earlier this year. In this conversation, Corey and host Michael Holtz discuss Corey's research, how he became interested in science, and what happens next in his career.