Jason Trelewicz Earns DOE Early Career Award to Advance Alternative Energy Solutions

Jason Trelewicz received the prestigious Early Career Research award from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. He will receive $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 Stony Brook University President Samuel L. Stanley Jr. “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.”

An assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS) and director of the Engineered Metallic Nanostructures Laboratory, 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.

“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.

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

“Professor Trelewicz’s breakthrough research into alternative energy embodies our core mission to develop sustainable, transformative solutions that are relevant to today’s global challenges,” said CEAS Dean Fotis Sotiropoulos.

Professor Trelewicz received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering in 2008 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before joining Stony Brook in 2012, he 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.