The first cohort of 10 graduate student fellows under the Department of Energy funded HEP Consortium for Advanced Training (HEPCAT) program has been selected. This diverse group of students are pursuing their Ph.D. at various institutions across California. They will be supported for two years under HEPCAT to pursue their research and build connections with national labs.

UC Davis Physics graduate students Joseph Levine and Blanca Nino were among the ten selected. 

Joseph Levine is a second-year graduate student in Tony Tyson's group. He is working on the dark photon search experiment and is helping build a summer school module for the HEPCAT quantum devices topical group. He in interested in instrumentation and has experience in electronics, data acquisition, and COMSOL EM simulation software. Joseph is also active in mentoring K-12 students in STEM.

Blanca Nino is a first-year graduate student in the department of physics and astronomy and hails from Fresno, CA. She received her BS at SUNY Buffalo. Blanca is interested in silicon tracking detector development for high energy physics collider experiments and will use her HEPCAT award to study the thermal, mechanical, and radiation-tolerant characteristics for future silicon trackers. Blanca participated with STEM Squad of UC Davis, designing and facilitating a hands-on circuits activity geared toward middle school students.