For the second consecutive year, a graduate student from the Department of Aerospace Engineering has been awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship Program Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Steven Anderson, a graduate student working on his doctoral degree in aerospace engineering has been named one of the 2014 winners.
The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering and mathematics-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions. As the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind, the GRFP has a long history of selecting recipients who achieve high levels of success in their future academic and professional careers.
Competition is fierce and selection is based on outstanding abilities and accomplishments, as well as the potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of the US science and engineering enterprise. With only 12 aerospace engineering students nationally being selected each year, these awardees share in the prestige and opportunities that become available when they are chosen.
Fellows benefit from a three-year annual stipend of $32,000 along with a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees (paid to the institution), opportunities for international research and professional development, and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education they choose.
Anderson’s field of research is plasma-based space propulsion under the guidance of Dr. Sharath Girimajii, Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering.