Three Occidental alumni received 2024 fellowships from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) to support their ongoing academic research. An additional three alumni earned honorable mentions.
The GRFP recognizes outstanding graduate students who are pursuing full-time, research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), or in STEM education. Fellowship recipients receive three years of financial support over a five-year period, including an annual stipend of $37,000.
Hannah Case ’20, Jack Leonard ’22, and Rachel Zhang ’23 each received NSF GRFP awards for their respective study of economics; the chemistry of life processes; and macromolecular, supramolecular, and nanochemistry. Case is currently a research associate at the University of California, Berkeley, while Leonard and Zhang are pursuing PhDs in chemistry at the University of California, Irvine, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, respectively.
Honorable mentions, which are accorded to meritorious applicants who did not receive fellowship offers, are considered significant academic achievements at the national level.
Anna Palmer ’19, Mira Ranganath ’23, and Jack Thomas-Colwell ’23 each received honorable mentions for their respective study of sociology; plant biology; and chemical theory, models, and computational methods. Palmer is pursuing a PhD in sociology at UC Berkeley, Ranganath is earning a master’s degree at the University of Washington, and Thomas-Colwell is a doctoral student in chemistry at Harvard University.
