Related Links: Higher Tuition for Engineering Students?

Joshua Atwood is a devoted traveler, he notes: “The world is too incredible to not be seen first-hand.” This love of traveling and the outdoors, hiking, backpacking, kayaking, and even skydiving, led him to his current research, Invasive Plant Ecology. He participated in an undergraduate study abroad program in New Zealand, where he examined successional changes in floral communities on landslide slopes. After graduating from Bowdin College, he was able to travel as an environmental educator and work with invasive plant managers in a variety of locations. The diversity of plant life and competitive strategies he encountered during this experience inspired him to pursue research at the graduate level.

He recommends K-12 students who might be interested in ecology or biology spend a lot of time outdoors, until they discover their specific passion. If they’re interested in studying a plant or an animal, it’s important that they learn about it first and see it in nature. He also recommends volunteering with someone who is doing research in your particular field.

Joshua is studying the evolution of competitive ability in invasive plant populations at the University of Rhode Island. Specifically, he is looking at adaptations in competitive traits associated with the invasion of island habitats characterized by low biotic pressure.

This scholarship program, originally established in the U.S. to honor the work of Anita Borg and to recognize outstanding young women scholars in computer science and related fields, expanded to Europe most recently. Nearly 300 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 31 countries applied for the award. Sixty-three finalists were selected; 20 women received a €5,000 scholarship for the 2008-2009 academic year. The remaining 43 finalists received a €1,000 award.

Related: Getting a PhD in Computer Science - Society of Women Engineers Scholarships - Sergey Brin, Google Co-Founder, NSF Graduate Research Fellow

UC Riverside Engineering Students Receive Research Funding

Lindsay Yee, a graduating senior who has done worked at CE-CERT’s Atmospheric Pollution Laboratory (APL), has won a highly competitive three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship.
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“Lindsay has been a top researcher in our atmospheric processes lab for four years and is quite deserving of this national honor,” said Cocker, adding that he feels a special kinship with Yee because her career to date, closely parallels his – they won many of the same awards – including the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship – and he also chose to go to Caltech for graduate studies.

Yee served as president of the Riverside Student Section of the Society of Women Engineers in 2006-07. She also won a Ford Motor Co. Undergraduate Scholarship and first place in the Jim Guthrie Undergraduate Research Competition in 2007.

The long-term aim of the fellowship is to build a global pool of research leaders and encourage long-term international collaboration with the UK.

The Fellowships cover the broad range of natural and social sciences, engineering and the humanities. 50 fellowships are awarded each year. They provide grants of £24,000 per annum to cover subsistence and £8,000 to cover research expenses, plus a one-off relocation allowance of £2,000. As part of the scheme, all Newton Fellows who remain in research will be granted a 10 year follow-up funding package worth £6,000 per annum.

Related: Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship Directory - Singapore Research Fellowship

Electrical engineering grad students earn prestigious NASA fellowships

David Hoffman and Amin Nehrir, master’s students in electrical engineering, both received $30,000 fellowships through NASA’s Graduate Student Researchers Program. In addition to the money, which covers educational expenses, Hoffman and Nehrir will each spend a portion of the coming year as interns at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., one of the oldest and most famed aviation and space laboratories in the world.
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Hoffman and Nehrir work with lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging. Their work involves sending a pulse of laser light into the sky and letting it bounce off the particles suspended in the air. By measuring the amount of light that bounces back, how that light is scattered and the time it takes to return, scientists can learn about the composition of the lower atmosphere.
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“These connections we’re making in NASA are really nice steps to take because it allows us to take our expertise in instrument development and get outside help in moving into this atmospheric science,” he said, noting that the connection to NASA began through the Montana Space Grant Consortium, which funded the initial projects and provided student support.

NASA is particularly interested in the small, 2-by-4-by-4-foot lidar assemblies MSU is building. By comparison, some lidars are large enough to fill an entire 40-foot cargo container, Repasky said. He added that MSU’s lidars are also relatively inexpensive, costing less than $100,000. Larger and more complicated assemblies cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Photo, by Kelly Gorham, shows Amin Nehrir (left) and David Hoffman in front of a green laser beam they are using to study the composition of earth’s atmosphere.

Related: NSF Research Fellowship for Two Montana State Students - Science Fellowship Directory - Carnegie Mellon Engineering Students Win NDSEG Fellowships

UA Students Earn NSF Fellowships

José Manuel Álvarez (in photo) and Joshua Holst, both anthropology students, along with linguistics student, Kara Hawthorne, have received the prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship…

With his grant, Álvarez wil examine multicrafting within households by analyzing the variability in flaked stone tools from floor and trash mound contexts at the Marana Mound site in the Tortolita Mountains. The project will contribute to the understanding of the Marana Mound site and Hohokam prehistory and shed light on the relationship between domestic and external trade activities.
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The NSF fellowship will enable Holst to conduct an ethnography on the “resource curse,” a phenomenon where countries that are exporting primary commodities face an increased risk of armed conflict. He will collaborate with the Jungle Quichua communities inhabiting the Ecuadorian-Colombian border to do a dual ethnology. During his research, he will work with decision-makers within the petroleum industry impacting the region.
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Hawthorne, a doctoral degree candidate, will conduct three research projects to study language acquisition in children between the ages of 2 and 7.

“It’s quite an honor, and it has motivated me to get an early start to my research career,” Hawthorse said. “Research in language acquisition is a crucial step in understanding normal development, so that we are better able to help those with developmental problems.”

Related: Arizona State Students Receive NSF Fellowship - NSF Fellow: Ekaterina Hristova Spriggs

NC State Students Receive Fellowships:

Brandon [Cochenour - in photo] is currently an Electrical Engineer with the Department of Defense, and has been employed by the Navy at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station since 2004. There, he has been involved in the research and development of next generation laser-radar systems using novel RF-photonic techniques for laser imaging and communication systems underwater. In 2006, he was awarded first place in the graduate student poster/paper competition at the IEEE Ocean Engineering Society conference for his work in underwater optical communications. He was awarded as a Top Navy Scientist and Engineer of the Year in the Emerging Investigator category, which was presented by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for R&D in 2007.

Under the SMART fellowship, Brandon will pursue PhD studies in Electrical Engineering this Fall at North Carolina State University, where he plans to focus on optical communications and RF-photonics. He received the B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Lafayette College in Easton, PA (2003), and the M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD (2008).
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William Cox has been awarded the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Electrical Engineering at NC State University under the direction of Dr. John Muth, in the area of underwater freespace optical communications. He is a founding member of the Underwater Robotics Club and writes about robotics at GoRobotics.net.

Related: Jennifer Robinson, North Carolina State NSF GRF

The research students do at NIST depend on the student’s field but are inline with NIST’s mission statement, which often revolves around the testing and standardization of common things used by scientist or consumers. NIST is responsible for things like developing, maintaining and advancing the nation’s chemical measurement system to testing the life of house paint under varies environmental conditions. Past work credited to NIST is particularly remarkable, like the discovery of the super conductor or atomic clock.

Other fascinating things, a graft of Newton’s original apple tree in their courtyard, an award winning library, cafeteria and museum located on the research facility.

The five Grinnell graduates named NSF Fellows include:

* Adam Booth ‘04, with a major in physics, is pursuing graduate study in geology at the University of Oregon.
* Natalie Funk ‘07, with majors in biological chemistry and French, is studying molecular biology at Harvard University.
* Amber Jolly ‘06, with a major in biological chemistry, is pursuing graduate study in cell biology at Northwestern University.
* Katherine Lewin ‘05, with a major in biology, is studying neurosciences at Duke University.
* Elizabeth Pekarek ‘05, with a major in biology, is pursuing graduate study in evolutionary biology at Duke University.

Each of these NSF Fellows conducted undergraduate research while at Grinnell. Eight other alumni were named to honorable mention by the fellows program.

Grinnell, where approximately one-third of students major in science, ranks high nationally in the matriculation of graduates who later complete Ph.D.s in chemistry (6th nationally); biological sciences (9th); psychology (9th); and physics (20th).