Early Career Paths at Los Alamos National Laboratory
Abstract
We represent a selection of early career staff at LANL with backgrounds in mathematics. There are many possible paths to a position at LANL. The lab has very active graduate research and postdoctoral programs, and it is not uncommon for graduate students to become postdocs, who can then be “converted” to staff. Conversion from being a postdoc is not the only route to a position at LANL, nor is it a guarantee, but most of us did postdocs here before becoming staff. Being a postdoc here also gives you an idea of whether you’d like living in northern New Mexico, a rugged, beautiful, and somewhat remote area. It is important to say here that citizenship is not a requirement for many of the positions at the lab. The lab historically and currently welcomes investigators from all over the world. LANL offers a broad spectrum of mathematical challenges that are largely problem driven. Particularly to those who feel that academic mathematics can be stove-piped, with a focus on deep but not necessarily broad expertise, the LANL environment gives the flexibility to move and grow in many different directions. The lab encourages a team-based approach to problems, which not only enhances themore »
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1756814
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-19-31917
Journal ID: ISSN 0002-9920
- Grant/Contract Number:
- 89233218CNA000001
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Notices of the American Mathematical Society
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 67; Journal Issue: 04; Journal ID: ISSN 0002-9920
- Publisher:
- American Mathematical Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING; Mathematics
Citation Formats
Dorn, Mary Frances, O'Malley, Daniel, Nagarajan, Harsha, Ray, Navamita, and Sornborger, Andrew Tyler. Early Career Paths at Los Alamos National Laboratory. United States: N. p., 2020.
Web. doi:10.1090/noti2065.
Dorn, Mary Frances, O'Malley, Daniel, Nagarajan, Harsha, Ray, Navamita, & Sornborger, Andrew Tyler. Early Career Paths at Los Alamos National Laboratory. United States. https://doi.org/10.1090/noti2065
Dorn, Mary Frances, O'Malley, Daniel, Nagarajan, Harsha, Ray, Navamita, and Sornborger, Andrew Tyler. Wed .
"Early Career Paths at Los Alamos National Laboratory". United States. https://doi.org/10.1090/noti2065. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1756814.
@article{osti_1756814,
title = {Early Career Paths at Los Alamos National Laboratory},
author = {Dorn, Mary Frances and O'Malley, Daniel and Nagarajan, Harsha and Ray, Navamita and Sornborger, Andrew Tyler},
abstractNote = {We represent a selection of early career staff at LANL with backgrounds in mathematics. There are many possible paths to a position at LANL. The lab has very active graduate research and postdoctoral programs, and it is not uncommon for graduate students to become postdocs, who can then be “converted” to staff. Conversion from being a postdoc is not the only route to a position at LANL, nor is it a guarantee, but most of us did postdocs here before becoming staff. Being a postdoc here also gives you an idea of whether you’d like living in northern New Mexico, a rugged, beautiful, and somewhat remote area. It is important to say here that citizenship is not a requirement for many of the positions at the lab. The lab historically and currently welcomes investigators from all over the world. LANL offers a broad spectrum of mathematical challenges that are largely problem driven. Particularly to those who feel that academic mathematics can be stove-piped, with a focus on deep but not necessarily broad expertise, the LANL environment gives the flexibility to move and grow in many different directions. The lab encourages a team-based approach to problems, which not only enhances the breadth of our approach to solving problems, but also gives team members access to new fields. From the outside (academia), however, it can be difficult to see how fields map between academia and the lab. This is one of the reasons that having interaction with the lab as a graduate student or postdoc can be helpful in understanding if the environment would be a good match for you. An important advantage of working at the lab is our high visibility both in academia, as well as in industry and the government. Because of its mission-driven projects, LANL, and more broadly the Department of Energy Laboratories, help set research directions that are picked up by researchers in academia. For this reason, many lab staff have worked at LANL for a number of years, then have transferred into academia after having set the agenda for their field of expertise. Below, we will share some of our experiences, opinions, and reflections in order to give the reader a feel for our own early career experiences.},
doi = {10.1090/noti2065},
journal = {Notices of the American Mathematical Society},
number = 04,
volume = 67,
place = {United States},
year = {2020},
month = {4}
}
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