Seniors, Alumni Named NSF Fellows

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Five Harvey Mudd College seniors—Kenny Buyco, Kyle Carbon, Kacyn Fujii, Andrew Loeb and Kiley Sobel—were awarded prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships, which recognize outstanding students pursuing advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Eight recent HMC graduates also received NSF fellowships. One HMC senior and eight alumni received honorable mention.

The award includes a three-year, annual $30,000 stipend, $12,000 for tuition and fees, international research opportunities and the freedom for fellows to conduct their own research at an accredited U.S. institution of their choosing. For meritorious applicants who do not receive fellowship awards, the NSF awards honorable mention, considered a significant academic achievement.

Buyco plans to study civil engineering at the California Institute of Technology, Carbon will study aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University, Fujii will study electrical and electronic engineering at Stanford University, Loeb will study applied mathematics at Cornell University, and Sobel will study human-computer interaction at the University of Washington.

The following alumni were also fellowship recipients:

AlumniResearch Area of StudyGraduate School
Thomas Aldrich ’12Chemical SynthesisNorthwestern University
Lilian de Greef  ’12Human-Computer InteractionUniversity of Washington
Marie Godla ’11Biomedical EngineeringCornell University
Jennifer Iglesias ’12Applied MathematicsCarnegie Mellon University
Alicia Schep ’11GenomicsStanford University
Tselil Schramm ’12Algorithms and
Theoretical Foundations
University of California,
Berkeley
Brian Soe ’12Mechanical EngineeringStanford University
Mary Van Vleet ’12Chemical Theory, Models and
Computational Methods
University of Wisconsin,
Madison
Fellowship Recipients

HMC senior Martha Cuenca (civil engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) earned honorable mention. Also receiving honorable mention in the 2012 competition were the following alumni:

AlumniResearch Area of StudyGraduate School
Alix Chan ’12Chemistry of Life ProcessesHarvard University
Lea Hagen ’10Astronomy and AstrophysicsPennsylvania State University
Karen Heinselman ’12Electronic MaterialsCornell University
Alice Paul ’12Industrial Engineering and
Operations Research
Cornell University
Stuart Pernsteiner ’12Software Systems and
Software Engineering
University of Washington
Louis Ryan ’12Applied MathematicsHarvard University
Brian Stock ’09EcologyUniversity of Washington
Edward Wang ’12Human-Computer InteractionUniversity of Washington
Honorable Mentions

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program helps ensure the vitality and diversity of the nation’s base of science and engineering candidates. Fellows are seen as crucial to maintaining and advancing the nation’s technological infrastructure and national security as well as contributing to the economic well being of society at large.

Program participants are expected to become experts who contribute significantly to research, education and innovation in the STEM fields. Past fellows include Google founder Sergev Brin, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and numerous Nobel Prize winners.