Six Georgia State Graduate Students Receive National and International Fellowship Awards
Six Georgia State graduate students recently received prestigious awards and fellowships for their outstanding academic achievements, adding to an extensive list of graduate accomplishments at the university.
Five students from the College of Arts and Sciences, along with one student from the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, received awards from internationally-acclaimed programs. They join more than 110 students of The Graduate School who have received fellowships since 2013.
"We are immensely proud of our students who have been awarded these prestigious fellowships,” said Dean Lisa Armistead of Georgia State University’s Graduate School. “They have demonstrated unparalleled talent, dedication, and passion in their respective fields of study. Their selection for these highly competitive awards is a testament to their outstanding academic achievements and innovative research contributions.”
Supporting STEM studies
The National Science Foundation (NSF) selected Micah Holness, Cade Lawson and Jordan Pincus to participate in its Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP).
The NSF’s GRFP recognizes and supports 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. The five-year fellowship period includes three years of financial support and an annual stipend of $37,000.
“This opportunity will give me the flexibility to create and pursue my own research ideas, which is an important part of what academic researchers do in their jobs,” Lawson said. “I am hopeful that it will let me create a portfolio of work to showcase my passions and my aptitude as a researcher.”
Holness, Lawson and Puncus received three of the 2,750 GRFP fellowships awarded this year. During the application process, these students provided letters of recommendation, academic transcripts, a statement of purpose and an original research proposal before learning their fellowship acceptance.
An international opportunity
The Embassy of France selected Hannah Sturgeon (Neuroscience PhD student) for the Chateaubriand Fellowship. The award aims to initiate or reinforce collaborations, partnerships or joint projects between French and American research teams by supporting outstanding Ph.D. students from American universities who wish to conduct research in France. The highly competitive program accepts between 40 and 50 students in STEM fields each year.
Sturgeon was selected after an application process that included letters of support from French and American advisors, a work proposal, dissertation explanation and thorough detail of her accomplishments as a graduate student. Her award covers the cost of travel, health insurance, and a stipend for living expenses during her research.
Beginning in February 2024, Sturgeon will focus on the effects of microorganisms on brain development around the time of birth at the Pasteur Institute in Paris for six months as part of her dissertation. Previous research on the topic has overlooked potential effects in the earliest days of life, and it is something Sturgeon wishes to explore.
“One interesting aspect of birth is the transition a fetus goes through from a sterile or nearly sterile womb to an environment teeming with microorganisms, a process that introduces the newborn mammal to a microbiota that will continuously flourish across many body sites throughout life,” Sturgeon said. “Studies in germ-free mice have shown that the absence of a microbiota leads to deficits in intestinal physiology, immune system functioning, and social behavior in adulthood. My dissertation will assess if the gut microbiota affects brain and immune development around the time of birth.”
A national impact
Erin Lottes and Nicole Rigney (Neuroscience PhD students) each earned a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health. This award helps ensure that a diverse pool of highly trained scientists is available in appropriate scientific disciplines to address the nation's biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research needs through individual research training.
Both Lottes and Rigney received awards in neuroscience, which can provide up to five years of support for research training leading to a Ph.D, combined MD/Ph.D or other combined professional-research degree.
For Lottes, this area of research is on a protein called a chaperone – a protein that assists other proteins to fold properly during or after synthesis – and the grant will allow her to continue her research and present her findings at an international conference.
“Chaperones are in all types of different cells, and normally help fold other proteins as they are made,” Lottes said. “This one in particular seems to be very important for neurons to develop their dendritic arbors, so my research has focused on how this chaperone supports the tree-like shapes of neurons during development, as well as how its role may change in cases of neurodegenerative disease.”
Before acceptance, these students underwent a months-long process of research planning, collecting preliminary data and developing a research plan. Through the program, they will obtain individualized, mentored research training from faculty sponsors while conducting their dissertation research.
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