NSF Awards Graduate Research Fellowships to 30 from Natural Sciences
Dozens of UT students have received prestigious fellowships from the National Science Foundation.
This spring, the National Science Foundation awarded Graduate Research Fellowships and honorable mentions to 46 Texas Science undergraduates, graduate students and recent alumni.
The Graduate Research Fellowship Program supports exceptional students pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees in STEM fields. Fellows receive a three-year annual stipend of $37,000 as well as a cost-of-education allowance of $16,000 to conduct research at any accredited U.S. graduate school.
This spring, 13 Texas Science undergraduates and 17 graduate students and recent UT alumni learned they had won fellowships. Additionally, 7 undergraduate students and 9 graduate students and recent UT alumni were awarded honorable mentions from the NSF. Below are the recipients, their fields of study and the research areas for which they received recognition.
2026 Graduate Research Fellowship Recipients
- Adar Ambar, chemistry alum (B.S. ’25) – Materials Science and Engineering
- Panhapich Chea, chemistry undergraduate student – Chemical Synthesis
- Mary Caroline Cole, biology undergraduate student – Geosciences/ Biogeochemistry
- William Fan, computer science graduate student – Robotics
- Mrigayu Ghosh, biochemistry and biomedical engineering undergraduate student – Biomedical Engineering
- Madalyn Riana Gragg, physics graduate student – Condensed Matter Physics
- Jason Hillman, chemistry graduate student – Chemical Engineering
- Nimit Kalra, computer science graduate student (B.A., ’21) – Machine Learning
- Aravind Karthigeyan, physics alum (B.S., ’25) – Quantum Information Science
- Hannah Caitlyn Lawson, astronomy undergraduate student – Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Arham Rajendra Lodha, mathematics undergraduate student – Algebra, Number Theory, and Combinatorics
- Benjamin August Lyons, mathematics graduate student – Analysis
- Miles Mackenzie, physics alum (B.S., ’25) – Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics
- Luisa Mao, computer science undergraduate student – Robotics
- Delaney Elizabeth Miller, chemistry graduate student – Chemical Measurement and Imaging
- Elena Morales-Grahl, neuroscience graduate student – Neurosciences
- Noah Bryan Mugan, physics undergraduate student – Quantum Information Science
- Viraj Chetan Negandhi, chemistry undergraduate student – Chemistry of Materials
- Rohan Patel, chemistry undergraduate student – Chemical Catalysis
- Vidhya Prabhu, computer science graduate student – Wired and Wireless Networking
- Raksha Pradeep, biochemistry alum (B.S. ’25) - Biophysics
- Emily Riedhauser, cell and molecular biology undergraduate student – Systems and Molecular Biology
- Kalina Soto Dusenbery, neuroscience graduate student – Neurosciences
- Ellie Toguchi-Tani, astronomy graduate student – Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Virginia Vanicek, astronomy undergraduate student – Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Victor Wang, mathematics and computer science alum (B.S. ’25) – Natural Language Processing
- Catherine “Ren” Watson, mathematics undergraduate student – Algebra, Number Theory and Combinatorics
- Jimmy Xin, computer science alum (B.S. ’25) – Formal Methods, Verification and Programming Languages
- Amanda Yin, mathematics undergraduate student – Algebra, Number Theory and Combinatorics
- Linus Jeremy Zheng, computer science graduate student (B.S. ’25) – Formal Methods, Verification and Programming Languages
2026 Honorable Mentions
- Ava Marie Armstrong, chemistry undergraduate student – Chemical Structure, Dynamics and Mechanism
- Sasha Nicola Burckhardt, neuroscience graduate student – Neurosciences
- Megan Do, marine science alum (B.S., ’25) – Marine Ecology
- Mitchell Gale, physics graduate student – Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics
- Cecily Gibson, chemistry alum (B.S.A., ’25) – Neurosciences
- Ben Gonzalez, integrative biology graduate student – Evolutionary Biology
- Jenna Haines, biology undergraduate student – Ecology
- Hayden LeBroc, chemistry undergraduate student – Macromolecular (including Polymer Chemistry), Supramolecular and Nanochemistry
- Sofia Rachel McDonough, integrative biology graduate student – Ecology
- Marco Moriel, marine science graduate student – Geosciences/Marine Ecology
- Gabrielle Oliva, astronomy undergraduate student – Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Thomas Pope, chemistry undergraduate student – Chemical Catalysis
- Kai Svenson, physics graduate student – Quantum Information Science
- Meghna Ron Vergis, biology undergraduate student – Microbial Biology
- Hillary Xu, biology undergraduate student – Ecology
- Briaunna Zamarripa, chemistry graduate student – Chemical Synthesis
