Students Win National and International Prizes

Caltech undergraduate and graduate students have collected an array of awards this year, including a Fulbright grant, two Hertz Fellowships, a Marshall Scholarship, and 20 National Science Foundation Fellowships.

Fulbright Fellowship

Senior Soumya Kannan was selected as a Fulbright Scholar. The Fulbright Program is the flagship international exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government. Seniors and graduate students who compete in the U.S. Fulbright Student Program can apply to one of the more than 160 countries whose universities are willing to host Fulbright Scholars. The scholarship sponsors one academic year of study or research abroad after the bachelor's degree. Kannan will be studying next year at the Technical University of Denmark, developing a mathematical model for promoter activity—promoters are a class of genetic elements that initiate transcription of a gene—in Saccaromyces cerevisiae, a species of yeast. Additionally, she will be pursuing master's coursework in bioinformatics and systems biology.

Hertz Fellowships

Caltech seniors Kurtis Carsch and Paul Dieterle were selected to receive 2016 Hertz Fellowships. Selected from a pool of approximately 800 applicants, the awardees will receive up to five years of support for their graduate studies. According to the Hertz Foundation, fellows are chosen for their intellect, their ingenuity, and their potential to bring meaningful improvement to society. Carsch will begin PhD work in inorganic chemistry at Harvard University in the fall; Dieterle will also attend Harvard University, pursuing a PhD in quantum physics.

Marshall Scholarship

Senior Bianca Lepe was selected to receive the 2016 Marshall Scholarship and will spend the 2016–2017 academic year at the University of Edinburgh studying for a master's degree in synthetic biology and the following year at Imperial College London, completing a master's degree in science communication. Funded by the British government, the Marshall Scholarship provides support for two years of post–bachelor's degree study—covering a student's tuition, books, living expenses, and transportation costs—at any university in the United Kingdom.

German Academic Exchange Service Scholarship

Senior Laura Shou has received a Graduate Study Scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service to pursue a master's degree in Germany. She will spend one year at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the Technische Universität München, studying in the theoretical and mathematical physics program. The Scholarship supports highly qualified American and Canadian students with an opportunity to conduct independent research or complete a full master's degree in Germany. 

NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

The National Science Foundation (NSF) selected 20 current Caltech students and 13 alumni to receive its Graduate Research Fellowships. The awards support three years of graduate study within a five-year fellowship period in research-based master's or doctoral programs in science or engineering. Caltech's awardees for 2016 are seniors Kurtis Mickel Carsch, Webster Guan, Soumya Kannan, Emil Timergalievich Khabiboullin, Laura Shou, and Karthik Guruswamy Siva; and graduate students Hannah Marie Allen, Charles H. Arnett, Sarah Michelle Cohen, Heidi Klumpe, Rachel Ann Krueger, Usha Farey Lingappa, Joseph P. Messinger, Andres Ortiz-Munoz, Shyam M. Saladi, Lee Michael Saper, Nancy Helen Thomas, Annelise Christine Thompson, Elise M. Tookmanian, and Jeremy Chi-Pang Tran. Caltech alumni in the 2016 class of Graduate Fellows are Sidney Douglas Buchbinder, Kaitlin Ching, Katherine Jennie Fisher, Emmett Daniel Goodman, Edward W. Huang, Jacqueline Maslyn, Misha Raffiee, Connor Edwin Rosen, Nicole Nisha Thadani, Malvika Verma, Eugene Aaron Vinitsky, Yushu Joy Xie, and Doris Xin.

National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowships

Graduate students Preston Kemeny and Kirsti Pajunen have been named recipients of three-year Department of Defense (DOD) National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowships. The NDSEG award is given to applicants who have demonstrated the ability and special aptitude for advanced training in science and engineering, and who will pursue a doctoral degree in, or closely related to, an area of interest to the DOD.