On Aug. 11, New Mexico State University (NMSU) announced that Cory Windorff, an assistant professor of inorganic chemistry, was among 93 early-career scientists nationwide chosen to receive part of $135 million in research funding by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). According to a press release by NMSU, these grants are part of the 2023 Early Career Research Program and benefit recipients from 47 universities and 12 DOE national laboratories, including Windorff, who secured the grant through the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).
According to the press release, under the DOE's funding, Windorff's research project named "Investigating Electronic Structure in Clusters of Actinide-Transition Metal Nitrides" will receive $875,000 over the next five years.
“It’s important to understand the electronic structure of metals so we can design more efficient catalysts for industrial processes,” Windorff said, according to the press release. “We can look at activating molecules like carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide or nitrogen and that can help to give us synthetic fuels or ammonia. These are very big in industrial processes. What we find could be a different way to access those.”
Windorff emphasizes the potential applications of his research in enhancing magnetic technologies, with the potential to miniaturize hard drives and contribute to advancements in medical devices like MRIs, per the press release.
“MRIs are great, but they require liquid helium to work and liquid helium is getting more and more scarce each year,” Windorff said in the press release. “If we can find different magnetic materials, maybe we will not need to use liquid helium for those.”
Elected through a stringent peer review process, the DOE's Early Career Research Program supports promising researchers, enhancing the nation's scientific workforce, the press release noted. Since 2010, the program has awarded 868 grants, with 564 to university researchers and 304 to national lab researchers.
Windorff intends to strengthen connections with Sandia and Los Alamos National Labs while training students for these valuable roles. The grant will include funding to support a post-doctoral researcher, two graduate students, and summer research opportunities for NMSU undergraduates according to the press release.