EAS Newsletter

From the Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences

Geology Undergraduate Jarely Mendez Wins Research Fellowship with the National Energy Technology Laboratory

Jarely Mendez
Jarely Mendez at the Department of Energy headquarters.

Jarely Mendez is a third-year geology undergraduate student who will graduate with her B.S. in 2023. This past summer, Mendez was selected for the Mickey Leland Energy Fellowship Program, a 10-week summer research fellowship.

This program allows students to complete a research project at one of 17 Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboratories or DOE Headquarters.

Jarely Mendez
Mendez presenting the results of her research on geologic carbon storage at the Department of Energy.

Mendez was assigned to work with a research group at the National Energy Technology Laboratory. She worked on developing an initial catalog and database to support modeling risks associated with geologic carbon storage in the Illinois Basin. Information from this analysis will be used to inform design of basin or sub-basin-scale numerical models of pressure, saturation, and stress evolution associated with basin-scale geologic carbon storage deployment.

Through her project, Mendez created maps using ArcGIS and learned how to integrate new data and visualize it. She wrote a technical report and presented her summer research at the Mickey Leland Energy Fellowship Technical Forum in Washington, D.C.