ALS Doctoral Fellowships in Residence

Applications for spring fellowships are due October 31, 2025. View: application form

Program Overview

ALS Doctoral Fellowships allow student researchers to work at the frontier of synchrotron radiation research and to help advance state-of-the-art techniques and applications. Students who have passed their Ph.D. qualifying or comprehensive exams, and advanced to candidacy, can apply to spend a year in residence at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) working closely with an ALS staff member. Fellows acquire hands-on scientific training and develop professional maturity to complement their doctoral research. Applicants must be full-time students currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program in the science or engineering disciplines, and pursuing research that will benefit from ALS capabilities.

ALS Doctoral Fellowships provide an annual stipend of $23,700, which does not include benefits. Fellows from non-US home institutions are also provided a one-time $3,000 stipend payment (included in the first monthly payment) to support additional expenses incurred to temporarily relocate to and reside in the US from abroad. Please note that the fellowship stipend does not constitute a salary, as the fellowship is not an employee position. It is awarded to support independent research or studies and can be used to help cover the following non-qualified fellowship expenses: room and board, travel, research, clerical help, or equipment. The stipend is disbursed directly to the fellow, not their host institution, in monthly increments.

Prospective applicants should contact one or more ALS staff members to discuss areas of common research interest and to agree on a potential research project and scope (staff are listed in beamline directory entries and on the ALS staff page).

New: Due to the upcoming dark time associated with the ALS Upgrade (ALS-U) project, the ALS is introducing increased flexibility in fellowship start and end dates to help applicants make optimal use of the remaining beamtime. For the October 2025 application cycle:

• The next fellowship cohort is scheduled to begin on March 1, 2026. However, applicants may propose an alternative start date, either earlier or later.
• Fellowships typically have a duration of one year. Due to the anticipated operating schedule, applicants may request a shorter fellowship period, provided it is at least six months. Stipends for shorter fellowships will be pro-rated accordingly.
• Applicants are encouraged to discuss proposed dates with their prospective host and must include a justification for any alternate start or end dates in their residency statement.

Eligibility

Applicants must:

• Be full-time students who have passed their Ph.D. qualifying or comprehensive exams and advanced to candidacy by the fellowship start date;
• Pursue research that will benefit from ALS capabilities;
• Remain enrolled in the graduate program at their home institution for the duration of the program; and
• Have external support that provides benefits.

Note that LBNL-employed students and postdocs are not eligible to participate in the ALS Fellowship Program.

Successful applicants will benefit from a series of professional development activities, including an orientation program, seminars throughout the year, and an opportunity to present results at the end of the fellowship.

Doctoral fellow Shambhavi Pratap summarizes her work on hybrid (organic–inorganic) perovskite solar-cell materials. (Credit: Marilyn Sargent/Berkeley Lab)

Expectations

Fellows are required to:

• Commit to the fellowship dates agreed with the facility and host;
• Live in or near Berkeley, and be on-site at Berkeley Lab at least 70% of the time during the fellowship;
• Sign and abide by the appointment letter, the terms of appointment, and other required ALS/LBNL policies;
• Submit a final report of research accomplishments to the ALS; and
• Acknowledge the support of ALS/DOE/BES in publications and presentations related to research conducted during the fellowship, and submit these publications to the ALS publication database. The specific acknowledgement language about ALS use and fellowship support you must use is listed on this page.

Application Process Timeline for the Spring 2026 Fellowship Cycle

How to Apply

The application period for the next round of fellowships will be October 1–31, 2025.

The doctoral fellowship application form asks for:

• Current C.V. and publication list
• Proposal of research to be performed (up to 2 pages). View guidance on research proposal.
• Statement explaining how you intend to leverage being in residence at the ALS and Berkeley Lab to benefit your research and career development (up to 1 page). View guidance on residency statement.

In addition, applicants should ask letter writers to separately submit through the same application portal:

• Recommendation letter from PhD advisor
• Letter of institutional support from the PhD advisor. Example letter of institutional support.
• Letter of support from the ALS host that describes how the project would benefit from ALS capabilities and advance ALS programs and strategic directions

FELLOWSHIP APPLICATION FORM

Selection Procedure

Fellowship applications will be reviewed by a panel of ALS scientists and leadership. Applications will be evaluated based on the qualifications of the applicant, the merits of the proposed collaborative research, and the alignment of the project with ALS programs and strategic priorities.

For more information: Please contact Ashley White, ALS Division Deputy for Strategy.

Doctoral fellow Ziheng Yao describes how he uses infrared light at the ALS to study a range of samples, including battery and biological materials, meteors, and more. (Credit: Marilyn Sargent/Berkeley Lab)

Current Fellows

Fall 2025 Cohort

• Pradyumna Elavarthi, University of Cincinnati (ALS host: Dula Parkinson)
• Wei He, University of California, San Diego (ALS host: Antoine Wojdyla) – renewal
• Harlan Heilman, Washington State University (ALS hosts: Cheng Wang and Thomas Ferron) – renewal
• Nitzan Hirshberg, University of Minnesota (ALS host: Hans Bechtel)
• Amartya Kattemalavadi, University of California, Berkeley (ALS host: Martin Kunz)
• Francesco Marzari, University of Trento (ALS host: Grant Cutler)
• Nushrat Naushin, University of California, Davis (ALS host: Barat Achinuq) – renewal
• Julia Niwemuto, University of Houston (ALS host: Zengqing Zhuo)
• Elly Miller Shatsala, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (ALS hosts: Chenhui Zhu and Nobumichi Tamura) – renewal
• Nicole Taylor, Harvard University (ALS host: Alpha N’Diaye) – renewal

View past doctoral fellows>>

About the ALS

The ALS is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science national scientific user facility whose excellent scientific reputation, expert staff, and capabilities in the soft x-ray, hard x-ray, and infrared regimes attract approximately 1,600 academic and industrial users each year in disciplines spanning physical, chemical, materials, biological, energy, and Earth sciences. It is one of five Berkeley Lab user facilities that serve a combined 14,000 users annually. The co-location of these user facilities – including the Molecular Foundry Nanoscale Science Research Center and the NERSC scientific computing center, as well as Berkeley Lab’s outstanding programs in materials and chemical sciences among others – offers a prime environment for collaborative science. The ALS has been a global leader in soft x-ray science for more than two decades and is currently undergoing a major upgrade (ALS-U) that will endow the facility with state-of-the-art x-ray capabilities. It’s an exciting time to be at our facility!