Rice Tops NSF Grants Awarded

Rice Tops NSF Grants Awarded
BY MICHAEL CINELLI
Rice News Staff
April 2, 1998

Rice undergraduates won 27 National Science Foundation fellowships this spring,
the most in the university’s history, which led to the school being first among
the nation’s highly selective universities in the percentage of enrolled students
who received this honor.

The 24 regular fellowships received by Rice students resulted in an award ratio
of 0.88 per 100 enrolled undergraduates. MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia and
Stanford universities recorded lower ratios than Rice.

In addition, three Rice undergraduate students received NSF Minority Fellowship
awards, while two Minority Fellowships were awarded to Rice graduate students.

Five of the NSF Fellowship recipients from Rice will go to Stanford. Three
each will go to MIT, Harvard, Yale and the University of California-Berkeley.
The remaining fellowship winners will attend Columbia, Illinois, Rice and other
universities.

"The most prestigious graduate fellowships in science and engineering
are those granted annually by the NSF," said Rice President Malcolm Gillis.
"Each year, a disproportionate number of these awards go to Rice undergraduates,
in striking testament both to the quality of a Rice education and the capabilities
of our students."

The fellowships offer three years of financial support for advanced study to
approximately 1,000 graduate students in the mathematical, physical, biological,
engineering, and behavioral and social sciences. The awards were established
to ensure vitality and diversity of human resources in these fields.

Rice students received 10 NSF Graduate Fellowships in 1997 and 19 fellowships
in 1996.

Rice University NSF Graduate Fellowship Recipients:
Christopher Alan Adolph, John Charles Burant, Ron Ofer Dror, Meghan Elizabeth
Elliott, Clinton Wakefield Epps, Daniel Joseph Grossman, Maya Rani Gupta, Brian
David Harms, Michele Dawn Hastings, Kari Lee Hoffman, Adam Robert Hunter, Bruce
Owen Knuteson, Rebecca Austin Lewis, Valerie Ai-Ling Liu, Lucia Arlis Nurman,
Alexander James Pasadyn, Alexander Hayes Penn, Aaron Thomas Pierce, Jennifer
Roy Rahmandar, Jamie Margaret Shorey, Matthew Thad Stone, Benjamin Charles Walter,
Tennessee Joplin Yoder and Herman Heng Yue.

Undergraduate NSF Minority Fellowship Recipients:
Duane David Gilyot, David Henry Goetz and Martha Ann Lovato.

Graduate NSF Minority Fellowship Recipients:
Susana Joanne Berrios-Ortiz and Nikki Latrina Williams.