By Renewable Energy Focus staff

The two clean energy fellowship programs are:

• The Postdoctoral Fellowships Program; and
• The SunShot Initiative Fellowships Program.

“These investments in American ingenuity and discovery will strengthen our economy and help the next generation of US scientists and engineers to launch their careers in clean energy,” says Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

“We need more of our young scientific minds to focus on clean energy solutions and pave the way for a cleaner, healthier environment. It’s the only way to ensure America continues to lead in the world’s growing clean energy economy.”

Under the two-year Postdoctoral Fellowships Program, DoE is seeking up to 20 postdoctoral fellows whose academic careers have focused on specific topics in the following technology areas: Building efficiency, industrial efficiency, vehicles, fuel cells, biomass, geothermal, solar energy, and wind or water power.

Selected fellows will be encouraged to pursue innovative, independent new projects in addition to the specific research project area selected by the fellow when applying to the program.

The SunShot Initiative Fellowships Program will select either recent Masters or Ph.D. graduates to focus on innovations that will advance the SunShot goal of reducing the total cost of solar energy systems by about 75%, making them cost competitive with other forms of energy without subsidies by the end of the decade.

In the fellowship program, the selectees will drive innovations in the ways that solar systems are conceived, designed, manufactured, and installed.

Selected fellows will work at DoE’s Solar Energy Technologies Program headquarters in Washington, DC, and help develop new research and development programs to achieve the goal of US$1/W utility-level installed solar PV by 2020.