
The Visiting Faculty Program (VFP) seeks to increase the research competitiveness of faculty members and their students at institutions historically underrepresented in the research community in order to expand the workforce vital to the Department of Energy (DOE) mission areas. As part of the program, selected university/college faculty members collaborate with DOE laboratory research staff on a research project of mutual interest. VFP alumni have reported that their experiences enable them to successfully publish articles. Their internships have become instrumental components of their tenure files. Most importantly, a summer at Berkeley Lab enables VFP interns to integrate new research into their teaching curriculums. A VFP internship allows interns to bring back knowledge to their communities and positively impact minority-serving institutions around the country.
This summer, Berkeley Lab’s Workforce Development & Education program spotlighted our VFP interns’ work in a special lecture series. Over the course of four sessions, our VFP interns shared their first experiences working in a new field with each other and guests. They discussed the ways that their new research intersected with their previous work and how a summer at Berkeley Lab deepened their knowledge of their field.
You can view the 2022 Visiting Program Faculty Series below.
Session #1, July 7, 2022, 12:00 PST – 1:30 PST
Presenters: Vidya Ganapati, Richard Lombardini, and Ridwan Sakidja
Session #2, July 21, 2022, 12:00 PST – 1:30 PST
Presenters: Sagar Bhandari, Christopher Berndsen, and Frank Yip
Session #3, July 28, 2022, 12:00 PST – 1:30 PST
Presenters: Anh Thai Nhan, Michael Cohen, and Jim Pesavento
Session #4, August 4, 2022, 12:00 PST – 1:30 PST
Presenters: Xiaokun Yang, Xuechen Zhang, and Cynthia Trevisan
To learn more, please RSVP for the series here.
About our 2022 speakers










Dr. Frank Yip is a Professor of Chemistry at CSU-Maritime, just recently completing his 10th year on the faculty. Originally from El Paso, TX, he received his AB degree from Princeton University and his PhD from UC Berkeley. His research focuses on electron correlation at the most fundamental level in small atoms and molecules. He has received several NSF research grants to support his investigations (the first such awards at Cal Maritime) and has incorporated numerous gifted undergraduates in his research. He is also the campus coordinator for the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (CSU-LSAMP) at Cal Maritime.
Dr. Xuechen Zhang received his MS and Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Wayne State University. He is currently an associate professor in the School of Engineering and Computer Science at Washington State University Vancouver. His research interests include the areas of storage systems, operating systems, and high-performance computing. He is a member of the IEEE and ACM.