Research

Thirteen Students, Alums Receive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships

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The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced that thirteen UMass Amherst students and alumni have received awards from the Graduate Research Fellowship Program. The program provides three years of support during a five-year fellowship period.

Students currently at UMass who received the award include:

  • Selena Y. Cho, mechanical engineering;
  • Joshua McGee, bioengineering;
  • Eric F. Wuesthoff, biological anthropology;
  • Grazielle Valentim Figueredo, a current graduate student in sociology;
  • Gorana T. Gonzalez, a current graduate student in developmental psychology;
  • Helene Grogan, a current graduate student in sociology;
  • Lars Howell, a current graduate student in bioengineering.

Former UMass undergraduates now studying in Ph.D. programs at other institutions who won the award include:

  • Shuaib Adesina Balogun, who is studying materials engineering at Georgia Tech;
  • Ericka L. Griggs, who is studying ecology at Western Connecticut State University;
  • Elisa Guzman, who is studying chemical synthesis at Tufts University;
  • Michelle Heeney, who plans to study developmental biology;
  • Nicholas R. O’Hare, who is studying biomaterials at Northeastern;
  • Emma R. Robertson, who is studying glaciology at Penn State.

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship is a competitive award program that awards 1,600 fellowships a year. The award includes a $34,000 stipend and $12,000 cost of education allowance to the graduate degree-granting institution of higher education for each Fellow who uses the support in a fellowship year. Confirmation of acceptance in a graduate degree program in STEM or STEM education is required.

The Graduate Research Fellowship program provides fellowships to individuals selected early in their graduate careers based on their demonstrated potential for significant research achievements in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. Its goal is to provide financial support to early-career individuals with a demonstrated potential to be high achieving scientists and engineers and to broaden participation in STEM for underrepresented groups, including women, minorities, persons with disabilities and veterans.