The National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) awardees and honorable mentions for 2020 have been announced. This program recognizes individuals early in their graduate training in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields and provides three years of support.

Jenna Manske, who is part of the Wolfe lab, is the one graduating senior from the Chemistry who was awarded a fellowship.

Offered Awards

The eleven graduate students who were offered awards are: Sarah Ackenhusen (Narayan), Anthony Allen (Stephenson), Madeline Cooke (Ault), Gloria De La Garza Benavides (McNeil), Joshua Jones (Kennedy and Koutmou), Danielle Maxwell (Shultz), Maria Teresa Morales Colon (Sanford), Maribel Okiye (Sherman), Evan Romero (Narayan), Katie Rykaczewski (Schindler), and Ina Zaimi (Shultz).

Honorable Mention

Also nine students received honorable mentions. They are: Allison Batka (ADP MS Student; Lehnert), Peter-Philip Booth (Kennedy), Anna Calkins (Biteen), Nolan A Carney (Nagorny), Kathryn Kulju (Pratt), Jeremy Monroe (Koutmou), Ryan Walser-Kuntz (Sanford), Catherine Wilhelm (Koutmos), and Troy Zehnder (Schindler).

Thanks for applying

For those students who applied but didn’t receive honors, the department appreciates your effort. Do not despair, says Alison Narayan, assistant professor of chemistry. In a tweet, she pointed out “I applied twice and went 0/2 as a graduate student. The process not only gave me experience in proposal writing but also taught me important lessons in persistence and empathy.” Clearly many a scientist has gone on to a successful career without this award.