LANL scientist lands fellowship at White House

Santa Fe High grad's hard work pays off during rigorous essay, interview process

Sue Vorenberg | The New Mexican

7/3/2008 - 7/4/08

David Loaiza scrambled to finish 10 essays in the little time he had between work and seven 15-day trips to North Korea in the early months of 2008.

His goal: To get into the White House Fellowship program, an elite group of future leaders in training that at one time included former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Gen. Wesley Clarke, CNN medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta and former New Mexico Gov. Garrey Carruthers.

Loaiza, a Santa Fe High School graduate with a doctorate in nuclear engineering from the University of New Mexico, said he doesn't really consider himself a natural writer.

But his girlfriend helped shepherd the Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist through the process, reviewing the essays he prepared during spare time on his trips monitoring the denuclearization of North Korea with the Department of Energy's Office of Dismantlement and Transparency.

"The essays were on a wide variety of topics, like goals, contributions to society, all sorts of things," Loaiza said. "I was fortunate that my girlfriend read them. Technical people, we tend to write in a passive tense. She went through and was like 'this is good,' 'this is good,' 'this is BAD.' I fought her, but in the end I really appreciate it."

The essays got the 39-year-old through the regional finals for the program, but that wasn't the end of his work. After that, he went through a series of grueling interviews.

At one point, he did 10 of them in two days, he said.

"They ask you questions like 'Pompey or Cesar?' (from ancient Rome) and you have to come up with something that's not just a good answer, but something that will distinguish you from everybody else," Loaiza said. "After going through that many interviews though, I don't think I'll ever be afraid of one again."

Still, in the midst of all the questions, one did stump him, he said.

"One of them asked me 'who's your favorite poet?' and I went completely blank," Loaiza said with a laugh.

Despite the brief hiccup, though, Loaiza's hard work ended up paying off. Last Friday he was named one of 14 chosen for the 2008-2009 class of White House Fellows, and the first one with ties to Los Alamos chosen in more than 30 years.

"I was overwhelmed when I found out. I was preparing myself not to get it," Loaiza said. "If you look at the other finalists they had to chose from, everybody just had this incredible energy. They were all qualified."

Now that he's been accepted, Loaiza's life is likely to get even more hectic.

He'll soon be assigned as a special assistant to a member of the White House staff. And he'll spend the next year working with that member's division, learning about policy and government, and speaking with other fellows to compare experiences.

"I have to stick with science, because that's what I do, but there are a lot of areas I could be assigned to," Loaiza said. "It could be the National Security Council, Department of Defense, Office of the Secretary, or National Science and Technology Council. But the Department of Commerce or Treasury would be fun, too."

Whatever area he gets picked for, though, Loaiza should prepare to work almost nonstop for the next 12 months, said Greg Canavan, a LANL scientist who was part of the White House Fellow class of 1977-1978.

"It's an excellent opportunity for any young person that has a real commitment to something bigger than themselves," Canavan said. "It's a lot of hard work, but it managed to broaden me out without squishing me flat."

When Canavan was a fellow, he ended up working with the Office of Energy Policy and Planning, which was tasked with building an agency to merge about 20 different energy-related offices into one group.

That agency was eventually named the Department of Energy, which now owns the lab Canavan and Loaiza work for.

"The task was to put together the DOE and the first national energy plan," Canavan said "President Carter regarded that as a very high priority, and we operated right out of the White House for the first part of my tour."

As a fellow, Canavan got to see how policy is put together from the inside, which gave him a very different perspective than if he had just stayed as a lab physicist, he said.

"We put together a national energy plan, the main elements of which are still in effect today," Canavan said. "We got to spur the big strategic petroleum reserve, put it together and get it partially filled."

After he finished his fellowship, Canavan continued to work for national committees for DOE and the Department of Defense, and also helped advise "a couple presidents," he said.

And beyond that, he's a Los Alamos senior fellow, who helps shape strategies for science at the lab.

"I think I would have been a happy little physicist my whole life if I didn't get into this program," Canavan said. "It showed me there was a bigger world that I could contribute in. And I met a lot of people that showed me I could contribute to a lot of projects, without living in Washington."

Loaiza, who's just starting on a similar journey, said he's honored to have been accepted into a program that has had such an influence on people like Canavan. And he plans to return the honor by contributing to the country as much as possible when he finishes, he said.

"I want to live up to the expectations they have for me. I know that by choosing me, somebody else had to be denied, and I won't forget that," Loaiza said. "I'm excited to get started. I'm hoping for a great year."

Contact Sue Vorenberg at 986-3072 or svorenberg@sfnewmexican.com.