DOE fellowship awarded to Iain Bisset

Texas A&M’s Department of Physics and Astronomy said on May 18 that PhD student Iain Bisset received a Department of Energy fellowship for research using machine learning in neutrino and dark matter physics. The department said the award will support work at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where Bisset will be placed as part of the fellowship, according to a department post on X. The announcement did not specify the fellowship program name, stipend level or award term. Publicly available Texas A&M and Department of Energy materials, however, place the award in a broader pipeline of DOE-backed computational science and laboratory training. ### What exactly did Texas A&M say Bisset will work on? Texas A&M’s physics department said Bisset’s fellowship supports machine-learning research on neutrinos, dark matter and physics at Los Alamos. The department’s post described the award as a Department of Energy fellowship and said it would involve work at the New Mexico lab. The post is the clearest public statement so far tying Bisset, the DOE fellowship and Los Alamos to the same project. (energy.gov) A 2026 preprint posted by Texas A&M’s Mitchell Institute lists “I. Bisset” as a co-author on “Analytical and Machine Learning Methods for Model Discernment at CEnuNS Experiments.” That paper title does not mention the fellowship, but it aligns with the department’s description of Bisset’s work as computational detector-analysis research in particle physics. ### How does machine learning fit into neutrino and dark matter research? (energy.gov) The Department of Energy says neutrino science remains a major Office of Science priority and points to experiments designed to measure neutrino properties and study how matter evolved in the universe. In that setting, machine-learning tools are commonly used to classify detector signals, separate background noise from candidate events and compare competing physics models. DOE materials on dark matter research also describe national-lab efforts to improve detection and analysis as experiments push for rarer signals. (mitchell.tamu.edu) Texas A&M has been active in both fields. An April 1 university story said Texas A&M technology is operating nearly 7,000 feet underground in a leading dark matter detector, underscoring the university’s role in experimental searches tied to the same broad research areas named in Bisset’s fellowship announcement. ### Why does Los Alamos matter here? (energy.gov) Los Alamos National Laboratory is one of the Department of Energy’s national labs and runs research programs that combine computing, physics and national-security science. DOE says its internships and fellowships are designed to place students and recent graduates into projects that build scientific and technical career pathways. Los Alamos also has an established relationship with the Texas A&M system. (stories.tamu.edu) A laboratory publication this year described collaborations with Texas A&M researchers and fellows to build technical capabilities across shared research areas. That does not identify Bisset specifically, but it shows that Texas A&M-to-Los Alamos placements already exist inside a broader institutional partnership. (energy.gov) ### Do public records identify the specific DOE fellowship? The Department of Energy’s public pages list several fellowship and internship routes for graduate researchers, but the available materials reviewed did not identify Bisset’s award by formal program name. DOE’s Computational Science Graduate Fellowship is one prominent pathway for doctoral students whose work emphasizes computing and mathematics, and DOE said in May 2025 that it had selected its 35th class of fellows. (lanl.gov) The Texas A&M announcement reviewed here did not say whether Bisset’s award is that program or another DOE fellowship. ### What comes next in Bisset’s field? Texas A&M’s Mitchell Institute is scheduled to host its 2026 Collider, Dark Matter, and Neutrino Physics conference from May 27 to May 30 in College Station. The meeting is set to focus on recent developments in the same research areas cited in the May 18 announcement, and Bisset’s public preprint record places him inside that active Texas A&M research stream as his Los Alamos placement begins. (mitchell.tamu.edu) (energy.gov)