The NASA Alabama Space Grant Consortium (ASGC) has awarded $44,000 to students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). ASGC offers graduate fellowships and undergraduate scholarships to Alabama students majoring in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) fields and interested in a career with NASA or in a space-related field.
“This is an outstanding group of UAB undergraduates and a graduate student that has been selected,” said Yogesh K. Vohra, Ph.D., Professor and University Scholar in the Department of Physics and associate dean of Interdisciplinary and Creative Innovation in the College of Arts and Sciences. “The selection process is the best part of my duty as the UAB campus director of the Alabama Space Grant Consortium.”
Carrie Schindler, a doctoral student in the School of Engineering Department of Materials Science and Engineering, was awarded a $37,000 graduate fellowship. She first visited UAB in 2008 through the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates summer program and joined the UAB graduate program in Fall 2010. Her research thesis focuses on “Fabrication and Characterization of Functionalized Polymer Systems using Dip Pen Nanolithography.” The ASGC funds $18,500 of the fellowship, which is matched by UAB.
Seven undergraduate students were each awarded $1,000 scholarships: Gauen Alexander, Department of Civil Engineering; Jerome Arceneaux, Department of Chemistry; Jackson Carr, departments of Mathematics and Physics; William Haselden, departments of Biomedical Engineering and Physics; Sara Liaghati-Mobarhan, Biomedical Engineering; Jamieson Matthews, Civil Engineering; and Sean Young, departments of Chemistry and Physics.