[Scott] Coming up as part of our "Young Voices" series, we'll hear from two energy scientists in training.

- There is a lot of concern that experts aren't being taken seriously.

And while this is a huge debate in public policy about the role of experts in government and in different fields, without experts, you lack information, and so we should be concerned if we're starting to lose some influence.

- There are so many things that we use in our everyday lives, GPS, so many different medications that would not be possible without fundamental research done at universities frequently supported by federal funding.

- Yeah.

- And we will feel the effect of these cuts for kind of years to come as they influence the job market, as we have fewer workers, as people leave America to go do science other places.

[Scott] Next on "Energy Switch," the opportunities and challenges for energy PhDs today.

[Announcer] Major funding for this program was provided by Arizona State University.

Shaping global leaders, driving innovation, and transforming the future.

Arizona State, The New American University.

[upbeat music] - I'm Scott Tinker, and I'm an energy scientist.

I work in the field, lead research, speak around the world, write articles, and make films about energy.

This show brings together leading experts on vital topics in energy and climate.

They may have different perspectives, but my goal is to learn, and illuminate, and bring diverging views together towards solutions.

Welcome to the "Energy Switch."

Deciding to pursue a PhD in an energy-related field, I can tell you from experience, requires a huge commitment.

It's also hugely exciting.

You've discovered something you're so passionate about, you want to dedicate three to seven more years studying it.

We'll talk to two PhD candidates about their research, about federal funding cuts, and how they affect today's academic environment, and about their job prospects and future careers.

My guests are Kelsey Richardson.

She's pursuing her PhD in chemical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, focused on the chemical recycling of plastics.

Teagan Reasch is a PhD candidate in energy and environmental policy at Ohio State University with a focus on interdisciplinary solutions for sustainable energy.

On this episode of "Energy Switch," we'll meet two very promising energy PhDs.

Well, welcome.

Glad you're here with us.

Thanks for coming in from California and Ohio.

Which energy or related industries wanna hire PhDs today?

- Yes, so from my perspective, chemical engineering, a lot of the research and development jobs in larger chemical industries, pharmaceuticals.

That's a place that a lot of people from my graduate program end up in.

- How about you, Teagan?

- Yeah, so there are many different areas in public policy that would hire a PhD in energy, like non-profits, academia, industry jobs, and government sectors.

- Very cool.

A lot of job opportunities, potentially.

What are some challenges facing recent PhDs these days?

- Yes, I mean, I would say there's a number of them, and I'm sure we'll get into them, but the big ones that I can think of are funding as well as just kind of the politicization of science.

You know, there's a lot of hot-button issues that are hard to touch right now and a lot of mistrust in scientists these days where it's hard to walk that line.

- Sadly.

- Yes.

- But interestingly.

- Yes.

- I would agree that funding has been a large concern for a lot of PhD students and people in academia right now.

I would also say that there is a lot of fear about jobs in the future, job security within, especially public policy and the social sciences, and being taken legitimately as a field within energy research.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Are you feeling the effects of funding cuts as a graduate student?

- So, my college is really good at making sure that all of the graduate students have secure funding.

All of us are fully funded for at least four years within our program.

However, there was a project that I was working on that was terminated recently and has left a lot of professors in energy scrambling to find ways to fund their grad students.

[Scott] Gotcha.

Was that federally supported or state or?

- Yes, it was federally supported.

- Gotcha, gotcha.

How about you, Kelsey?

- Yes.

So, very similarly, my program is really great at making sure that people have funding to do the research that they're here to do.

But with all of these changes and all of these federal funding cuts, we're definitely feeling the effects of those.

And so, there's some more concrete effects.

The number of NSF GRFPs, which is one of the main fellowships that graduate students get, has been reduced at my university and kind of countrywide.

And then there's, you know, kind of the feeling side of it.

The less concrete.

People are feeling the instability, they're feeling the fear that we've talked about.

They're just kind of unsure how long their project will be funded.

Some grants have been cut and then reinstated.

And so, generally, the emotions kind of across the board are a lot of instability, feeling undervalued as these projects are being taken away.

- Are you worried about the future of science engineering in the U.S.?

- I would say yes, and I think that's the perspective that a lot of my classmates hold as well.

You know, researchers do so much more, graduate students do so much more than just the research.

So, when we lose funding and graduate students are forced to either find alternative forms of funding or graduate early, you're losing those TAs who are helping with instruction in classrooms.

You're losing the people who are doing this science that doesn't just affect them as researchers, but kind of society in general as these scientific advancements go on.

And on top of that, there's the whole concept of brain drain.

I've heard of people, you know, in this job search.

There are job postings that are specifically targeted to people at American institutions who maybe want to go abroad to countries that are more friendly to science right now.

- What a reversal.

[laughs] - Yes, very much so.

- Yeah, yeah.

Same question, are you worried on the sustainability side, science engineering in the U.S.?

- I do think that there is a lot of concern that experts aren't being taken seriously.

And while this is a huge debate in public policy about the role of experts in government and in different fields, I do think that without experts, you lack information, and so we should be concerned if we're starting to lose some influence.

- Right.

How about on the private sector?

Are you seeing industry funding that comes to you, some of your peers?

- So, within my public policy management cohort, I do think it is less common to receive industry funding.

The only funding I know of right now has come from government and non-profits.

However, I do know of several engineers that I work with who have received some form of industry funding or worked on industry projects during the summer to receive a stipend.

- Gotcha.

Kelsey, how about you?

- Yes, it is fairly common in engineering.

More common than maybe in some other disciplines in the energy space.

But even at UC Santa Barbara, industry funding is, I think, less than four percent of the funding that we get.

- Wow.

- So, it can in no way make up for, at least with the current system that we have in place, it can't make up for these federal funding losses that we have.

- Right.

- But chemical engineering, just due to kind of the problems that we touch on, it's a space that has more industrially funded.

- Right.

- My project is actually industrially funded, so I've gotten to see that scale of it as well.

- Yeah.

Tell me about your work.

Why are you in energy?

What, or related fields?

What got you jazzed about that?

- I actually initially had an interest in the Supreme Court, which led to an interest in state water rights.

And I took a couple of different classes and started to gear more of the things that I was writing and working on towards this environmental interests that I had.

And when I was trying to decide what to do in the future, I knew that I loved the environmental stuff, but I had a fantastic time doing research.

- Mm.

- And so I started looking into grad school and applied to OSU, and initially had not really thought of energy as being something that I would go into, and ended up with as my advisor, Jeff Bielicki, who is very energy oriented.

And I did a interdisciplinary specialization in energy and worked with students in different departments, and just fell in love with the area.

- Awesome.

- And it's been very fun since.

- So it was organic.

- Yeah.

- You kinda grew into it.

- Just kinda happened.

- Yeah.

How'd you fall into it, or was it ordained?

[laughs] - I mean, growing up in Texas, energy is kind of everywhere, and so it was something that I was interested in actually from a pretty young age.

I was a Watt Watcher in Texas in elementary school, so-- - Oh, a Watt Watcher?

- Yes, which is an educational program-- - Oh, cool.

- That's supposed to, you know, kind of get kids interested in energy and aware of energy usage.

So, I'd go around the classrooms, making sure that empty classrooms had their lights turned off.

- That's really cool.

- It was very fun.

And then I actually had some internship opportunities in undergrad with some chemical companies, and so I saw, from a chemical engineering standpoint, how energy is really integrated into the system.

So, you don't think about it on the everyday, but everything that we use takes energy either to make, to get it there, to dispose of.

And so, from the chemical engineering standpoint, I think a lot of the chemical industry is petrochemicals, which got me into the plastics research of-- - Gotcha.

- Thinking, we have all this plastic, we use a bunch of plastic, and it does a lot of great for society.

You know, it makes cars lighter, it's great for packaging, all of these great things, but it's not going anywhere.

And so, thinking about more sustainable end-of-use processes for these plastics was a really cool way to kind of integrate the idea of energy and all of the energy it's required to make those products, and then also kind of the sustainable chemistry side of it too.

- Yeah.

Yeah, that's really cool.

How about you, Teagan?

Are you looking electricity, transportation?

What are you doing?

- So, right now, we are working on a project looking at the impact of perceptions on electric vehicles.

We looked at three main perceptions with EVs, specifically resale concern.

Due to the deterioration of the battery, the value of an electric vehicle tends to diminish faster than a traditional internal combustion engine.

- Right.

- And so, we looked at the impact of people's resale concern, the impact of charging time expectations, and the impact of battery life expectations on people's interest in purchasing an electric vehicle.

- Interesting.

- And we also looked at how these things differed by two different access barriers, so household income and access to charging at the house, since most people prefer to charge their EV in their household.

And we-- - Tougher to do it in an apartment, you know?

Right, yeah.

- Oh yeah, absolutely.

Like homeowners might have access in a garage, but if you're living in an apartment, I don't have access to a charger where I park my car.

It's a 1920's parking structure.

I'm lucky the roof's not caving in.

[Scott laughs] But looking at these perceptions was especially interesting because there's been this implicit assumption that these perceptions affect EV adoption, but there's been limited research into whether or not they do.

- Yeah.

Kelsey, you mentioned plastics earlier.

Is that your area of interest?

Are you kinda diving into that for your PhD?

- Yes, my PhD focuses on plastics chemical recycling, so instead of doing mechanical recycling where you kind of shred it up and end up with a low value product, we look at chemical recycling, so chemically cutting those bonds to get back to your original starting materials.

And then you can make more recycled product in kind of this closed loop instead of digging up new materials out of the ground.

And I look at that for a specific plastic called polyurethane that's in mattresses and shoe soles and car seats-- - Okay, interesting.

- As well as other industries.

- We can hate plastics when you see 'em floating around some ocean vortex, somewhere piling up in landfills.

It's like, "Ugh."

But they're just embedded in everything we do and they have so much beneficial use.

- For sure.

Yeah, they have so much benefit to society, and we adopted them really quickly without having an idea of what we were gonna do with the end of life.

- Yes.

- And so now we're kind of having to retroactively think, we have all of these plastics, how do we get rid of them-- - Right.

Right.

- Instead of having them in our environment.

- That's the only time that's ever happened in human civilization.

- For sure.

No, we're perfect.

[laughs] We plan far in advance.

- Way out there.

[chuckles] You know, oops.

So, it's a trade-offs world, right, though.

- It always is.

- And do you think we're talking enough about that?

Just kind of the trade-offs, the positives of plastic, but we also have to do these things with them.

EVs are great, but they're also a lot of batteries, a lot of mining, and where do you dump 'em when they wear?

I mean, are we really getting to the trade-offs?

- I think it depends where you look within research, especially research like lifecycle assessment research has looked at how these different things trade off.

Like how impactful an EV is versus an internal combustion or hybrid.

And so, I think it depends where you're looking in research.

[Scott] Yeah.

- I would also say that we as researchers expect that, like, anything that we research will go directly to these people in charge.

But we have found that, like, there have been findings that that's not necessarily true.

That things just kind of get absorbed over time.

And so, it's just to be persistent and finding effective ways to communicate, because you can't just say like, "This is true.

I need you to believe this."

People are resistant to things that don't fit in with their worldview.

And so, just being persistent but not being confrontational.

- You have trade-offs?

Are you seeing in your field too?

- It's hard to expect, you know, the graduate student researcher or researcher, whoever's doing the science, to be an expert on all topics.

With PhDs, you're really hone in really deep on one topic.

- And very pointed.

- Yes.

And I think that's really where the value of interdisciplinary collaboration comes in, which is such a key part of science, is to have the people that do those lifecycle assessments, to have the people that kind of think about this systems-based approach instead of being really granular on the research topic like a lot of researchers tend to be.

- Yeah.

Your findings, and we have hope with plastics?

Give some plastics hope here.

[Kelsey laughs] - Yes.

- Are you seeing some cool things?

- Yeah, so we've found some pretty cool reactions that are able to cleave those bonds and get us back to our molecular starting points for polyurethanes.

And we actually found you can do it pretty darn quickly with specific chemicals, so this can happen in less than hours.

- Really?

- And we've even gotten a couple patents out of my research.

So, industry is really interested in this.

- Patents?

- Thank you!

[laughs] [Scott laughs] Yes, there are-- - That's awesome.

- Industries that are-- - Wow.

- Interested in adopting this.

It just now has to go from all of the neat science that we did to thinking about how do we actually plug this into our existing ecosystem.

- Mm-hmm.

- And so, the nice thing about chemical recycling where you're getting back to these high value starting materials is, you're recovering the value that you have in those molecules.

And so there have been some really promising techno-economic assessments that other groups have done that showed that this can get you starting material that can be cheaper in price than the fossil derived, and also, you know, has that recovered value from our carbon in our plastics.

- I love that.

How about on the sustainability side, Teagan?

Are your findings what you expected?

Are they different from what you expected?

What are you learning?

- So, our main finding was that negative perceptions do impact people's interest in purchasing an electric vehicle, which is pretty intuitive.

It was just something that we felt needed to be looked at.

And also, we had one very interesting finding.

We expected, you know, conservative individuals to be less interested in purchasing an electric vehicle, liberal individuals to be more interested when compared to moderate.

We actually found that when we included caring about climate change as a variable, that conservative individuals were actually slightly more interested in purchasing an electric vehicle than a moderate individual.

And people who were liberal, it wasn't significant.

And when we control for things that are highly associated with political affiliation, that effect just changes.

- Climate.

Do you think, especially in your age group, are we over-controlling for that as the primary driver of things?

On the plastic side, I mean, is climate still having a big driver on some of the things you're seeing, Kelsey, or?

- Yeah, I think especially from kind of the industry perspective, my understanding is that there are both economic drivers to do this from the value that we were talking about earlier where you're able to recover the value in your polymers, but then there are kind of sustainability pushes as well.

As you mentioned, people are really interested in kind of advocating and putting forward sustainable projects.

- Right.

- And so, if a company is able to say, "This new plastic contains X percent of recycled content."

There are starting to be markets that pop up that are more interested in paying more money for that.

- Yeah.

- But then again, that goes into kind of this whole idea of equitable, affordable products versus maybe more sustainable products.

- Right.

So, let's talk a bit about kinda the campus life a little bit.

Energy clubs or groups, what have you been part of?

What have you enjoyed a little bit more broadly with other students?

- Yeah, so I joined coming into Ohio State an NSF-funded traineeship called EmPOWERment.

[Scott] Mm.

- It's an interdisciplinary training in energy.

You work with different grad students across the university who are all in different fields.

We have a lot of engineers, people in geography.

I'm in public policy, we have another public policy student.

We learned about a specific area in energy and had to create a solution to a problem that was happening to an actual industry partner.

And it's been a fantastic opportunity.

I've made some great friends through it, but also people whose research I wouldn't have been exposed to if I hadn't participated in it.

[Scott] Yeah.

- Like one of my best friends as an electrical engineer who's working on something I've never even heard of before, but whose opinions do matter in the research that I'm doing, and so it's interesting to hear.

- Yeah, cool.

- Yeah.

- How about you?

Energy clubs, undergrad and grad, that you've been part of?

- Yeah, a lot of the groups that I've been a part of throughout undergrad and grad school have been more on the outskirts of energy, more on the sustainable kind of systems thinking policy approach.

- Okay.

- And so, something that I was involved in an undergraduate was a group called Engineers for a Sustainable World, which is a national organization, international actually, that has collegiate chapters across a number of different institutions.

- Right.

- And I loved it so much.

It introduced me to so many different engineers from different disciplines and different backgrounds that I actually now volunteer with their headquarters as the high school recruitment coordinator, so interested in getting high schoolers intrigued and interested in energy and engineering and sustainable careers earlier.

- That's really cool.

- Yeah.

And then also really passionate about science policy and science communication, so trying to get a science policy organization started at UC Santa Barbara.

Almost all of the other UC schools have some science policy group where folks interested in science policy, science communication can learn about writing op-eds or writing memos and quantification of kind of policy impacts of their work.

So, it'd be really neat to get that off the ground.

- That'd be awesome.

So, career-wise, what are you looking to do?

- I've got kind of two main tracks that I'm interested in and looking into.

One of them is more traditional research and development in some sort of chemical company, so using a lot of the skills that I've developed, the technical skills that I've developed through graduate school and chemical engineering.

But then the other side that I'm really passionate about is thinking about how I can get a role in science outreach, science coordination, communication.

You know, if this kind of current climate has shown me anything, it's the power of communicating your research to the decision makers, and the importance of connecting the people who do science with the resources that they need, and then also people in the everyday public.

- Gotcha.

- Yeah.

- If you think about lookout a little farther, what's your personal mission?

- I think, I know it's a very grand mission, but as far as bringing some sort of value to the planet, leaving it better than I found it I think it's a mission that a lot of young folks share.

But as far as how I can personally put that mission into place, I think the science communication and the advocating for people who are doing really neat science is a huge way that I'd love to make that happen.

- Yeah.

- Science is really a human problem and a human project, and so it's easy to get lost in the weeds of science.

It's good to remember that, you know, it's to support people.

Science is done by people and for people.

[Scott] Yeah.

Same question, career.

- So, I'm further removed from finishing my PhD.

I probably have about two or three years left.

- Yeah.

- Personally, I love talking about the research I'm doing.

I love engaging with other people on the research and in the topic area beyond the research, just in general.

I would love to go into academia and have a teaching position as well as a research position, and be able to work with these undergrads that are interested in energy and coming into it fresh and new.

- Right, I like that.

- Yeah.

- What thought would you leave with our listeners?

- I think science matters.

Whether you are a scientist, you are a researcher or not, science is affecting your everyday life, you know?

- Yeah.

- There are so many things that we use in our everyday lives, GPS, so many different medications that would not be possible without fundamental research done at universities frequently supported by federal funding.

- Yeah.

- And so, you know, even if you're not sitting in those universities doing that research, science affects you.

- Okay.

- Science matters.

You know, just these funding cuts are affecting graduate students, but more than that, these effects kind of permeate out to everybody in society.

Graduate students, TA students in the university, they are kind of involved in every side of research.

And we will feel the effect of these cuts for kind of years to come as they influence the job market, as we have fewer workers because we have fewer incoming graduate students, as people leave America to go do science other places.

You know, it's really easy to feel pessimistic, it's easy to see all the scary things that are happening, but so much good can happen when people get together and talk about the problems that we're encountering.

- Teagan, couple final thoughts?

- I think, like, one of the main things that I've been trying to point out is that change is slow and it's going to happen.

Change is slow, but there are people who care and are trying to make this change occur.

There are people like you who are in the sciences who are trying to find the best way to do this specific thing.

There's people like my cohort who are in policy, who are trying to find the best way to work with people.

If this research halts, we are going to stop developing new ways to deal with the effects of things like pollution and climate change, and so what gives me hope is that there are people out protesting, there are people who are voicing their concerns, who are advocating for something that they might not even be part of.

And so, I think that what gives me hope is seeing that people do care and they are voicing their concerns, and there are still some things within politics that are operating in a way that reflects the way that people feel.

- Right.

- And I think we're already starting to see some of that.

- For sure.

- So, yeah, I would agree that the funding is going to have widespread effects.

- Yeah.

Great thoughts.

You know what gives me hope is listening to you two.

[Teagan and Kelsey chuckle] - Thank you.

[laughs] - Really.

It makes me confident that we're gonna be in good hands.

Scott Tinker, "Energy Switch."

Teagan, thanks so much for joining us today.

Our aspiring PhDs said they chose their fields because energy is interdisciplinary, multifaceted, and essential to our modern lives.

However, both worry about the loss of federal funding for science at American universities.

They fear it could lead to reduced research and innovation in the U.S.

and the decline of American leadership in many fields.

They now see other countries trying to entice American scientists, faculty, and grad students away from the U.S., a reverse of the international brain drain that once attracted foreign scientists here.

That said, Kelsey's chemical engineering cohort sees opportunity in working for industry.

About half her peers hope to do that.

Most of Teagan's energy and environmental policy cohort will look for jobs in government, non-profits, or academia.

Both have found great resources, comradery, and collaboration in undergraduate and graduate energy clubs and groups, working with peers pursuing energy PhDs.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Narrator] Major funding provided by Arizona State University.

Home to the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, addressing critical challenges toward a future in which all living things thrive.

Arizona State, The New American University.