Brookhaven National Laboratory

Lijuan Ruan and Xin Qian (Brookhaven National Laboratory) UPTON, N.Y. — Two physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have been named 2026 Fellows of the American Physical Society (APS). The honor recognizes their excellence in physics and exceptional service to the physics community.

enlarge Luca Cultrera stands in an Instrumentation Division lab at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Cultrera is the section leader of the division and has over 20 years of experience in photocathode research. (David Rahner/Brookhaven National Laboratory) To many, the phrase “you learn something new every day” is often a playful response to a surprising or humbling moment.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory will lead a Genesis Mission Phase II project, called “Foundation Models for the Electric Grid: From Proof of Concept to Real-world Impacts.” The award to Brookhaven and its collaborators will support three years of research to develop a next-generation grid foundation model (GridFM), a system that can rapidly simulate scenarios for adding new loads to the electric grid.

Editor's note: The following news release announcing Genesis Mission Phase II funding was issued today by the U.S. Department of Energy. DOE’s Office of Electricity previously announced that DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory would lead a Genesis Mission Phase II project to develop a next-generation grid foundation model, GridFM 2.0. Brookhaven Lab will also be contributing to three additional Phase II projects announced today.

enlarge Summer intern Robert Desjardins, left, and his mentor, mechanical engineer Jonathon Greene, stand near superconducting magnets and the new four-tier magnet storage stand Desjardins helped design for the future Electron-Ion Collider at Brookhaven Lab. The redesigned stand will allow magnets removed from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider to be stored more efficiently for reuse as spares for the future collider.

enlarge Bryan Aleman and fellow summer interns presented their projects at a poster session in August. (Kevin Coughlin/Brookhaven National Laboratory) For Bryan Aleman, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Community College Internships (CCI) program offered an opportunity to turn classroom learning into hands-on experience at a National Laboratory. The program places community college students at DOE National Laboratories for research and technical projects alongside laboratory staff.

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enlarge Energy Secretary Chris Wright (center) and Under Secretary for Science Darío Gil (far left) honor the RHIC team (from left): Alexander Bazilevsky, Alexei Fedotov, Deepak Raparia, Lijuan Ruan, Peter Steinberg, Jin Huang, David Morrison, and Stephen Peggs. Other team members who were invited but could not attend: Thomas Roser, Michael Blaskiewicz, and Flemming Videbaek.