Brandi Skipworth Wins GATE Fellowship
Physics Graduate Student Brandi Skipworth is one of 10 graduate research assistants selected for a 2026-2027 Graduate Advancement Training and Education (GATE) fellowship. These UT Oak Ridge Innovation Institute (UTORII) awards support students involved in research affiliated with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Skipworth is working with the microelectronics lab in ORNL’s Physics Division to look for physics Beyond the Standard Model, the long-understood arrangement of particles and forces that describes how our universe works. She is part of Associate Professor Tova Holmes’s research group and is helping build tools to expand this framework. Her ORNL Advisor is Mathieu Benoit.
Skipworth is looking for “partner particles” predicted by supersymmetry, which could help explain phenomena that don’t fit the traditional model. To find them requires sophisticated tracking technologies. Her GATE project is “AI-Assisted Machine Vision for Tracker Module Assembly” and will take advantage of artificial intelligence to assemble, test, and calibrate high-density silicon detector modules at ORNL.
“My goal is to set up a reliable, well-documented process at ORNL for building and testing these silicon detector components so the lab can produce them consistently for future experiments,” she explained. “On a personal level, this fellowship rounds out my training by adding hands-on hardware experience to my software and analysis background and prepares me to lead detector development for future colliders.”
Skipworth earned a bachelor’s degree from the department in 2021 and won the prestigious Douglas V. Roseberry Award, the department’s top undergraduate honor. She joined the physics graduate program and in 2025 the department recognized her with the Fowler-Marion Award for her outstanding scholarship, research, and citizenship contributions.
“Brandi has consistently thrown herself at every new opportunity presented in graduate school, and she’s developed skills across teaching, computing, and scientific reasoning,” Holmes said. “I’m thrilled for her to get this chance to expand her expertise even further with this exciting project developing new tools to make the hardware required for our experiments to run.”
The GATE fellowship supports a 12-month appointment, including a $37,000 stipend, tuition waiver, fees, and health insurance. Skipworth is the 10th physics graduate student to win a GATE Fellowship in the past six years.