A SUNY Fredonia senior who majors in geology has been awarded a prestigious Mickey Leland Energy Fellowship (MLEF) by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Hayden Backus of Westfield will be a research associate at the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown, West Virginia, a U.S. national laboratory under the DOE.
Backus says, "I will be constructing a detailed description of wells previously drilled to target gas. I will be characterizing lithology information, geological formations and geochemical data to understand depositional environments and local controls on rare earth element/critical mineral enrichments and carbon storage."
During his time at Fredonia, Backus presented his research on the geochronology of the roots of the billion-year-old Grenville Mountains (eastern North America) with Department of Geology and Environmental Sciences Assistant Professor Wentao Cao at a sectional meeting of the Geological Society of America. Backus also participated in a stream restoration monitoring project and a GIS-based predictive modeling project of soil loss around the Village of Fredonia's reservoir, supervised by Department of Geology and Environmental Sciences Assistant Professor Matthew Purtill. In addition, he has played a key role in refining thin-section making procedures in the renovated rock preparation room in Houghton Hall. Following the DOE fellowship, Backus will work in the field of geology until the fall of 2025, when he plans to pursue a Master's degree.
The MLEF Program is a 10-week summer research internship for undergraduate and graduate students in STEM majors and enables participants to conduct cutting-edge research at one of the DOE's national laboratories or the headquarters. During the appointment, fellows receive a weekly stipend, and may be eligible to receive travel and housing assistance. The fellowship has placed over 1,000 students into national lab internships.
Hayden Backus, at the scanning electron microscope (SEM), equipped with an energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy detector (EDS) in Houghton Hall. Photo by SUNY Fredonia
