Physicist at Lab Wins Award from White House

A physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is one of 102 scientists selected by the White House for a 2014 Presidential Early Career Award. Miguel Morales works in the lab’s Condensed Matter and Materials Division where he studies the effects of high temperatures and pressures on various materials, according to a press release from the lab. Past honorees have received as much as $50,000 a year for five years.

Morales’ interest in science began when he was a teenager in Puerto Rico and a hurricane knocked out power to the Caribbean island. “I started reading about Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein in an encyclopedia of science," Morales said in the press release. "I had no exposure to science before that and I was fascinated. I started buying and reading books about science and I became obsessed with math as well. I knew then that I would devote my life to science."

Morales will accept his award at a ceremony in Washington, DC later in the year.  

From the press release:

“[Morales] earned his Ph.D from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2009, where he studied under David Ceperley, a former Livermore scientist. Before being hired at Livermore, Morales was a postdoctoral researcher at Rice University.”

Read more about the Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering on the White House website.