Two Arts and Sciences graduate students have been awarded prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships and five have received honorable mentions. Margaret Gullick in Psychological and Brain Sciences and Kathryn Fontaine in Engineering will receive the three-year awards offered by the NSF to support the nation's most promising young scholars in the early stages of their graduate study. The program is also designed to ensure the growth of mathematics, the sciences, and engineering research in the U.S. and to encourage women and underrepresented minorities to continue their studies.
Honorable mentions went to Melissa Callahan, Biology; Devin Currie, Engineering; Michael Hopkins, Psychological and Brain Sciences; Christine Looser, Psychological and Brain Sciences; and Devin Scweppe, Molecular and Cellular Biology.
“We are so proud of our award recipients and this recognition by the NSF reflects the high caliber of Dartmouth’s graduate community,” said Charles Barlowe, Dean of Graduate Studies at Dartmouth and Professor of Biochemistry. Barlowe also acknowledged all of the graduate students who put their efforts into the NSF fellowship applications and thanked faculty mentors for their support.
Dartmouth graduate students are highly competitive for these awards, and, in an effort to encourage more students to apply for fellowships, the Graduate Studies office holds workshops specifically designed to help students with the NSF application. As an added incentive for graduate students to apply, the Graduate Office awards $500 to students who receive honorable mention. Both winners and several students who received honorable mentions participated in the workshops before submitting their applications.
Barlowe, Joe Belbruno, Professor of Chemistry, and Kerry Landers, Assistant Dean of Graduate Student Affairs, presented the workshop last fall. They were joined by faculty reviewers John Winn and George Wolford and previous Dartmouth graduate student NSF winners, Anne Krendl and William O’Neal.
