Celina Twitchell, Gurneet Sangha, and Kevin Buno received the NSF Graduate Research Fellowships; honorable mentions went to Diana Svaldi and Nicholas Braun. The fellowships are considered a significant national academic achievement. They are awarded to outstanding graduate students based on intellectual merit and the student’s ability to have a broader impact on the scientific community as exhibited through their proposed research plan and community activities. The recipients are among 2,000 awardees chosen from over 16,000 applicants for the 2015 awards.

As the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind, the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program has a long history of selecting recipients who achieve high levels of success in their future academic and professional careers. The reputation of the fellowship follows recipients and often helps them become life-long leaders that contribute significantly to both scientific innovation and teaching.

Weldon School 5^th year master’s students Kyle Thackston and Alexa Yrineo have been awarded the prestigious Charles C. Chappelle Fellowships for the 2015-16 academic year. The Chappelle Fellowship is a highly competitive award for students with undergraduate degrees from Purdue for furtherance of post-graduate research at Purdue. Chappelle Fellows are selected on the basis of character, intellectual ability, and promise of degree attainment. The Chappelle Fellowship provides a stipend, Graduate School Fellow Scholarship, payment of most fees, and a medical insurance supplement.