Three UC Merced graduate students and two undergraduate alumni were recently offered fellowships from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP).
“I am delighted that our students continue to be recognized by the National Science Foundation as some of the nation’s most promising scientists and engineers,” Vice Provost and Graduate Dean Hrant Hratchian said. “Our GRFP awardees and those named as honorable mentions have demonstrated the potential for meaningful achievements in their fields.”
The five-year fellowship is awarded to senior undergraduates and first- and second-year graduate students in STEM and provides three years of financial support inclusive of an annual stipend of $37,000. This year, 2,037 fellowships were awarded and 1,788 honorable mentions were acknowledged out of 12,000 applicants to the program.
UC Merced’s 2024 NSF GRFP recipients from the School of Natural Sciences are:
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Anthony Alfaro, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from UC Merced in 2022, is a second-year Ph.D. student at UC San Diego in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
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Andrew DeMello is graduating from UC Merced with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry this May and will attend graduate school at Northwestern University this fall.
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Second-year Quantitative and Systems Biology Ph.D. student John Espinosa is investigating community college transfer students’ experiences in undergraduate research and exploring the use of Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences to increase persistence in biology among historically excluded groups.
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Luca Kuziel is a first-year Quantitative and Systems Biology Ph.D. student who earned his bachelor’s degree at Princeton University.
Undergraduate alumni Estefania Cuevas-Zepeda, Calista Lum and Harrison Tom received honorable mention recognitions by the NSF GRFP.
“We are eager to watch these students continue to grow in their respective fields at UC Merced and beyond,” interim Dean of the School of Natural Sciences Michael Findlater said.
Our GRFP awardees and those named as honorable mentions have demonstrated the potential for meaningful achievements in their fields.
This year’s School of Engineering recipient comes from the Department of Environmental Engineering. Jocelyn Rojas, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in environmental systems science in 2023, will join UC Santa Cruz as a Ph.D. student this fall and will study the effects of implementing principles of regenerative agriculture on soil health in small-scale community gardens.
Environmental Systems graduate students Genevieve McKeown-Green and James Waterford received honorable mention recognitions.
“The GRFP is a highly competitive program; we celebrate the campus’s winners and we also applaud all students who submitted an application,” Dean of the School of Engineering Rakesh Goel said.
Brenda Ortiz
Senior Public Information Representative
Office: (209) 228-4203
Mobile: (209) 628-8263
