CAS students and alumni awarded prestigious NSF graduate fellowships

CAS students and alumni awarded prestigious NSF graduate fellowships

By Sarah Nicholas

     STARKVILLE, Miss.—Two Mississippi State University students from the College of Arts and Sciences are among three MSU students and two MSU alumni chosen to receive fellowships from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program, the country’s oldest fellowship program directly supporting graduate students in STEM fields. 

     The prestigious awards are given to approximately 2000 students nationally out of a field of 13,000 applicants. 

     Both in the Department of Biological Sciences, Felicity Kleitz-Singleton, a senior microbiology major who will be a graduate student next year with biological sciences faculty member Matt Brown on the evolution and diversity of amoebae, and James “Jimmy” Walter Wehsener, a master’s level student studying evolutionary and conservation genetics of iguanas with biological sciences faculty member Mark Welch, will receive the five-year fellowship. The award includes three years of financial support, an annual stipend of $34,000 and a cost of education allowance of $12,000 to the institution. 

     Taylor Szasz, also a biological sciences graduate student working with biological sciences faculty member Amy Dapper, received an honorable mention. 

     “These are very competitive awards that provide for significant student support,” said Angus L. Dawe, the Dr. Donald L. Hall Professor of Biology and head of MSU’s biological sciences department. “Historically, the Department of Biological Sciences at MSU has not had many of these awards, so to have two concurrently is a significant step forward for us. It demonstrates that the elevated research productivity we have observed in recent years now is being reflected in a talented and high-achieving graduate student pool who set themselves high expectations. I hope that other current and prospective students will be inspired by these successes.” 

     Other students with an MSU connections awarded this fellowship include David Emmanuel Korba, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering, and alumnae Emily Chappell Sumrall and Laura Olive, who received their undergraduate degrees in 2021 from MSU’s Department of Chemistry. Sumrall now is in graduate school at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor and Olive is in graduate school at the University of Georgia. For more about their research, visit https://www.grad.msstate.edu/student-spotlight/2022/04/congratulations-our-msu-students-awarded-nsf-graduate-fellowship. 

     Part of the College of Arts and Sciences, for more information about the Department of Biological Sciences, visit www.biology.msstate.edu. MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.

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