Mechanical Engineering students from the Class of 2014 awarded NSF Research Grants for further study.
Peter Amos York, Dylan Losey, and Kevin Bush, all Mechanical Engineering students from the Class of 2014, have received graduate research fellowships from the National Science Foundation, which announced April 1 the 2014 class of fellows.
York is continuing his graduate work in Mechanical Engineering at Vanderbilt, while Losey will go on to study at Rice University. At press time, Bush was still weighing his options.
Other Vanderbilt graduates who have been awarded NSF grants for graduate study include Cheryl Lau (‘XX, Biomedical Engineering) and Chelsey Smith (‘XX, Biomedical Engineering). have received fellowships. Lau is attending Georgia Tech. Smith is attending Rice.
The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) provides fellowships to seniors planning to graduate study leading to research-based master’s or doctoral degree at accredited U.S. institutions. Awards are made in the fields of Psychology, the Social Sciences and STEM based upon a candidate’s demonstrated potential for significant achievements in the field.
The fellowships, valued at more than $130,000 each, are awarded directly to students and provides three years of financial support within a five-year fellowship period. That support includes $32,000 per year for three years for graduate study and $12,000 allowance annually for three years of tuition.
NSF received more than 14,000 applications for the 2014 competition and made 2,000 fellowship award offers. Among the 2,000 awardees, 1,069 are women, 382 are from underrepresented minority groups, 55 are persons with disabilities, and 37 are veterans. The fellows in the 2014 class come from 442 baccalaureate institutions, 58 more than in 2010, when the program first began awarding 2,000 fellowships each year.
GRFP is a critical program in NSF’s overall strategy in developing the globally-engaged workforce necessary to ensure America’s leadership in advancing science and engineering research and innovation.
According to the NSF, “As the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind, the Graduate Research Fellowship Program has a long history of selecting recipients who achieve high levels of success in their future academic and professional careers.” Previous fellows include former U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Google founder Sergey Brin, and many Nobel Prize winners.