Located on south campus, the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) Laboratory is the world’s leading laboratory for education and research in rare-isotope science, and a leading laboratory in accelerator science and in applications of rare isotopes to meet societal needs. The FRIB Laboratory is a major administrative unit within Michigan State University. FRIB’s staff of approximately 800 includes faculty, postdoctoral fellows, technicians, engineers, and graduate and undergraduate students.
FRIB contributes to training the next generation of U.S science and technical talent. Between 2018-2024, MSU awarded 17% of U.S. nuclear physics PhDs. The median time to degree at MSU is 5.33 years (compared to the U.S. median of 6 years) with an 81% PhD completion rate (compared to the U.S. average of 60%). MSU’s nuclear physics graduate program was top-ranked for over 30 years, according to U.S. News and World Report, which discontinued specialty rankings in 2026. At FRIB, graduate student researchers conduct groundbreaking research and develop new technology in the areas of experimental or theoretical nuclear physics, nuclear chemistry and radiochemistry, nuclear astrophysics, cryogenic engineering, accelerator physics and engineering, and related computational science alongside leading scientists and engineers from around the world. FRIB is world-unique and features custom FRIB-developed technology and instrumentation to operate FRIB and harness its power to enable scientists to pursue research and derive knowledge not possible elsewhere.
The doctoral degree programs are administered through MSU academic departments, primarily Physics and Astronomy, Chemistry, and Engineering departments. Admission and program of study are subject to the regulations of the appropriate department. The FRIB Laboratory plays an important role in undergraduate education, providing experience for undergraduate students in a highly stimulating environment where students are exposed to forefront nuclear science research and technologies. FRIB employs about 100 undergraduate students. Researchers also apply advanced artificial intelligence, machine learning, and emerging quantum-information-science approaches to accelerate discovery in nuclear science and accelerator systems.
FRIB’s heavy-ion facilities, including the FRIB Single Event Effects Facility and the K500 Chip Testing Facility, address the national shortage of testing capacity for advanced microelectronics. Through the MSU Space Electronics Initiative, a collaboration between FRIB and the MSU College of Engineering, students gain hands-on experience in chip design and radiation testing. FRIB’s isotope-harvesting program also enables production of high-purity radionuclides for research in fields including astrophysics, materials science, biology, and nuclear medicine.
MSU operates the FRIB scientific user facility for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC), supporting the mission of the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics. FRIB is the only accelerator-based DOE-SC user facility on a university campus.
The FRIB Laboratory ensures the nation’s continued competitiveness in nuclear science by using innovative technology needed for groundbreaking rare-isotope experiments. FRIB enables scientific research with fast, stopped, and reaccelerated rare-isotope beams produced by in-beam fragmentation, supporting a community of approximately 1,800 scientists from around the world. Since beginning user operations in 2022, FRIB has delivered hundreds of rare-isotope beams to researchers and continues to expand its scientific capabilities through major initiatives.
Visit
frib.msu.edu/grad or email gradschool@frib.msu.edu.