Evan Bozek, a doctoral candidate studying engineering science and mechanics, earned the opportunity to continue his research at the Los Alamos National Laboratory through the Office of Science Graduate Student Research Award. Credit: Caleb Craig/Penn State.
Engineering grad student receives DOE award for rock properties research
June 9, 2025
By Ty Tkacik
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has named Evan Bozek, a doctoral candidate in engineering science and mechanics in the Penn State College of Engineering, one of 79 recipients of the 2025 DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) Award. Selected graduate students have the opportunity to continue their thesis research at a DOE facility for three to 12 months.
“Learning that I received the award was extremely exciting and rewarding,” Bozek said. “My advisers and I put a ton of work into our application, so it was really fulfilling to see that it had paid off.”
Each year, the DOE awards a set of outstanding graduate students from across the U.S. the opportunity to participate in the SCGSR research program. Selected students receive world-class training and mentorship alongside access to state-of-the-art facilities and resources, according to the DOE.
During his award term, Bozek will perform research on numerical modeling of the acoustic and hydraulic properties of fractured rock at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in Las Alamos, New Mexico. This research is a part of his ongoing doctoral research funded by a grant from the DOE’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences.
Bozek obtained his bachelor's and master’s degrees in engineering science and mechanics at Penn State, where he currently studies under the mentorship of co-advisers Parisa Shokouhi, professor of engineering science and mechanics, and Jacques Rivière, assistant professor of engineering science and mechanics.
“This award recognizes Evan’s achievements and provides him with a great opportunity to interact with the scientists at LANL and to learn from them,” Shokouhi said. “The numerical modeling will nicely complement his experimental studies on how fractures modify the ultrasonic response of rocks under stress.”
One of Bozek’s research goals is to better connect the physical features of rock’s fractures, such as fracture size and contact area, to the elastic properties of fractured rock, which describe how rocks deform under different stresses. His work is key to understanding hydraulic fracturing in rocks — the process of injecting rock with fluids to create small rock fractures during underground drilling — and improving how engineers monitor underground geothermal energy and carbon dioxide reservoirs.
The research team has designed and built a one-of-a-kind device to conduct simultaneous ultrasonic and X-ray imaging of rock under stress. The ultrasonic testing measures the wave speed and amplitude through the fractured rock, which are directly tied to the rock’s elastic properties. Numerical modeling will extend the work to other rocks and fractures beyond what is tested in the experiments.
Understanding how rock responds to stress is critically important when monitoring underground fractures using a technique known as seismic surveying, which involves generating and measuring seismic waves in the ground, Bozek explained.
“Applications such as geothermal energy recovery involve fracturing and dynamic stressing of rocks through fluid injection to increase heat exchange, while underground carbon storage involves monitoring of existing fractures to prevent potential leakage,” Bozek said. ”It is difficult to monitor how the rock fractures develop and evolve, but seismic surveys can potentially uncover the fracture properties and stress changes these features undergo in real time. Ultrasonic and acoustic monitoring of rocks under stress in the laboratory is very valuable, as it would help us understand the seismic monitoring in real-world applications.”
The award provides Bozek with a unique opportunity to expand his thesis research using a unique computational tool developed at LANL. The software allows researchers to numerically model how the ultrasonic waves interact with fractured rock at different scales.
“Using this software will allow me to better understand the stress-induced deformations and fracturing of rock as well as the evolution of permeability, which will be important for our future experimental plans,” Bozek said. “Additionally, the opportunity will allow me to connect directly with the researchers who have developed the computational tools, which will be very helpful as we continue our research.”
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