Harrison Walker, a 2nd year Ph.D. candidate in the Interdisciplinary Materials Science at Vanderbilt University, has received a scholarship from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to work across several projects for the next two years. This unique opportunity enables him to advance his research in Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy, a technique pivotal in probing low-energy excitations in materials, where he will be evaluating the vibrational characteristics of superlattices and carbon nanotubes.
Walker will also be performing computational work using density functional theory, molecular dynamics, and machine learning to corroborate his experiments. The top-notch equipment and highly specialized facilities at Oak Ridge are an incredible place to continue his work on his joint theory-experiment thesis, co-mentored by Dr. Sokrates Pantelides and Dr. Jordan Hachtel, staff scientist at ORNL and Vanderbilt University alum.