<p>Selective grain growth behavior during super solvus heat treatment was investigated in an advanced polycrystalline, powder metallurgy nickel-based superalloy, RR1073. Experiments to identify and understand the microstructural features and precursors that ultimately result in selective grain growth were systematically tracked in an isothermal forging containing a gradient of effective strain levels. Characteristic microstructures associated with three levels of retained plastic strain were assessed and quantified as a function of time and temperature. Using advanced quantitative electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) the microstructural state of the deformed, partially heat treated, and fully solutioned material was evaluated using a microstructure informatics approach to provide insight into the kinetics and mechanisms that result in selective grain growth. The methodology used in this study allows for rapid extraction of physically based metrics that can provide quantitative information to support theories for selective grain growth that historically have been difficult to experimentally confirm. Findings from this investigation show that the probability for selective grain growth is highest when there is only a limited density of recrystallized grains present in the as-deformed microstructure prior to the super solvus heat treatment. During heating, recrystallized or low strain energy grains that reside in neighborhoods that have considerable intragranular misorientation can selectively grow and skew normal grain size distributions.</p>