PhD Student Brianna Billingsley Awarded Prestigious 2026 GEM Employer PhD Fellowship

The Department of Physics is thrilled to announce that graduate student Brianna Billingsley has been selected as a member of the 2026 GEM Fellowship cohort, receiving the highly competitive GEM Employer PhD Fellowship. The National GEM Consortium fellowship is a prestigious national honor designed to support high-potential minorities and women pursuing PhDs in STEM fields. By winning this award, Brianna joins an elite lineage of over 7,000 past GEM Fellows recognized for their academic merit, research promise, and potential to deeply impact their chosen fields.

Brianna’s fellowship is paired with her selection for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program. The SCGSR program successfully qualified as her required summer internship, allowing her to partner directly with the world-renowned Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) as her official employer sponsor.

As part of this comprehensive fellowship package, Brianna will receive a $20,000 PhD Fellowship on top of the paid 2026 SCGSR internship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Bri works with Prof. Tai Kong in experimental condensed matter studying the synthesis and characterization of geometrically frustrated magnets. At ORNL, she is learning neutron diffraction techniques and analysis for crystals grown at UArizona.  She plans to graduate in Spring 2027 upon completion of her 12-month internship and pursue a postdoctoral positon.

Please join us in celebrating Brianna on this incredible, hard-earned milestone and wishing her the best of luck during her research residency at Oak Ridge National Laboratory this summer!