Three MME students earn NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

Calendar Icon Apr 09, 2020      Person Bust Icon By Karl Vogel     RSS Feed  RSS Submit a Story

Liam Kruse (left) and Mary Radke (center), seniors in mechanical engineering, and Jordan Rosenbohm, a master's student in mechanical engineering and applied mechanics, were chosen to receive National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships.
Liam Kruse (left) and Mary Radke (center), seniors in mechanical engineering, and Jordan Rosenbohm, a master's student in mechanical engineering and applied mechanics, were chosen to receive National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships.

Three students in mechanical and materials engineering are among six from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln awarded graduate fellowships from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), one of the most prestigious graduate fellowships awarded in the U.S.

Mechanical engineering seniors Liam Kruse and Mary Radke and Jordan Rosenbohm, a master’s degree student in mechanical engineering and applied mechanics, were chosen to receive the fellowships, which provide a three-year annual stipend of $34,000 and a $12,000 cost-of-education allowance for tuition and fees that is paid to the university. Additionally, the GRFP provides opportunities for international research and professional development and the freedom to conduct their research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education.

Seven Nebraska students were also chosen as honorable mention, including three from mechanical and materials engineering -- seniors Ben Bevans and Mark Nail, and Zvonimir Pusnik, a master’s degree student in mechanical engineering and applied mechanics.

"This is a tremendous honor. These students have worked hard and have excelled in and out of the classroom. We are very proud of them," said Jeffrey Shield, chair of mechanical and materials engineering.

"Having as many awardees as mechanical engineering programs at places like Stanford and Illinois and Ohio State is further evidence that our students are very, very talented and can compete at the highest level. It is also a reflection of the many opportunities that UNL provides to students to get involved in research, clubs, or other extracurricular activities that broaden the education experience, and it speaks to the investment our faculty have made in students."

Also chosen for honorable mention recognition was Timothy Hackett, a doctoral student in biochemistry who is advised by Sri Kidambi, associate professor and graduate chair of chemical and biomolecular engineering.

The GRFP is the oldest American fellowship program that directly supports students in various STEM fields. Since 1952, a year after President Truman signed legislation establishing the NSF, the GRFP awarded its first fellowships. It has since funded more than 50,000 fellowships out of more than 500,000 applicants.

The GRFP has a long history of choosing recipients who go on to achieve high levels of success in their future academic and professional careers – among them 42 Nobel Prize winners, more than 450 members of the National Academy of Science and other well-known scientists, including Steven Chu (Nobel Prize winner and former U.S. Secretary of Energy), Sergey Brin (co-founder of Google) and Steven Levitt (co-author of “Freakonomics”).



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