A total of 52 students, including 30 graduate students and 22 undergraduates, from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have been offered Graduate Research Fellowships from the National Science Foundation (NSF). An additional twenty-six students have been accorded Honorable Mention.
Launched in 1952 shortly after Congress established NSF, the Graduate Research Fellowship program (GRFP) represents the nation's oldest continuous investment in the U.S. scientific workforce. The program recruits high-potential, early-career researchers and supports their graduate training in science, technology, social science, engineering, mathematics, and STEM education.
Awardees receive three years of support including a $37,000 annual stipend and a $16,000 cost-of-education allowance to defray the cost of tuition and fees. A total of 2,599 fellows were named from a pool of nearly 14,000 applicants.
“The GRF is the premier federal fellowship for graduate students in STEM, and Illinois has a long history of success with it," said Ken Vickery, assistant dean for fellowships in the Graduate College. However, this year marks a milestone, for 52 is the highest number of awardees we’ve ever had—an institutional record. I congratulate all of this year’s awardees and Honorable Mentions for their success with this wonderful fellowship.”
“This year’s results are particularly impressive given that the solicitation was released on short notice and introduced major eligibility changes, including the exclusion of second‑year graduate students,” said Dana Johnson, director of external fellowships. “Despite a compressed timeline and heightened uncertainty, Illinois applicants rose to the challenge, producing exceptionally strong proposals.”
Listed below are the awardees and Honorable Mention designees from the University of Illinois. A nationwide list of recipients is available on the NSF-GRF FastLane website.
Students interested in applying to the NSF-GRFP in fall 2026 should consult the NSF-GRF listing in the Graduate College's Fellowship Finder database and are invited to take advantage of the NSF-GRF Summer Writing Lab, one-on-one proposal advising, and other services offered by the Graduate College Office of External Fellowships.
Awardees
Carlos A. Aldana Lira (Computing and Data Science)
Shane Andres (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Conrad Thelonious Avila (Physics)
Nikhila Balasubramaniam (Materials Science and Engineering)
David J. Balut (Physics)
Spencer Biziorek (Materials Science and Engineering)
Zoe N. Caryl (Communication)
Jacob Copeland (Materials Science and Engineering)
James Crea (Computing and Data Science)
Charles Cundiff (Aerospace Engineering)
Chrystal Davis (Bioengineering)
Olivia Comfort Davis (Computing and Data Science)
Sri Chathurya Devineni (Bioengineering)
William C. Eshleman (Aerospace Engineering)
Maxwell Feidler (Materials Science and Engineering)
Kevin Fisher (Computing and Data Science)
William Gay (Computing and Data Science)
Elena Granzeier (Materials Science and Engineering)
Xylia Greeson (Agricultural and Biological Engineering)
Benjamin Hoham (Economics)
Amelia Maria Korveziroska Honeyville (Mechanical Science and Engineering)
Peter Wei Hsu (Bioengineering)
Michelle Huang (Computing and Data Science)
Giuliana Rose Judge (Chemistry)
Amar Alem Koric (Mechanical Science and Engineering)
Jason Li (Physics)
Shu-Hung Lin (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Sophia Yuxin Liu (Chemistry)
Juliana F. Marks (Civil and Environmental Engineering)
Mason W. Maron (Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences)
Joshua McPherson (Materials Science and Engineering)
Abigail Rose Miller (Chemistry)
Connor Mowry (Computer Science)
Alexandru T. Niculescu (Chemistry)
Michael Anthony Noguera (Computing and Data Science)
Joshua L. Pack (Chemistry)
Rahul Ramachandran (Computing and Data Science)
Ivan Ren (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Yasmine Rios (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Jason Robinson (Mechanical Science and Engineering)
Adriana Grace Schroeder (Chemistry)
Alyssa Vivienne Shih (Climate, Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences)
Dmitriy R. Shvydkoy (Mathematics)
Andrei Staicu (Computing and Data Science)
Tarun Suresh (Computing and Data Science)
Thea Traw (Computing and Data Science)
Laurel B. Walther (Psychology)
Gloria Xinyue Wang (Computing and Data Science)
Jordan S. Westphal (Mechanical Science and Engineering)
Victor Herman Williams (Materials Science and Engineering)
Jehyeok Yeon (Computing and Data Science)
Jinghan Annie Zeng (Computing and Data Science)
Honorable Mention
Annika L. Abbott (Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences)
Summer Joy Acker (Climate, Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences)
Anna G. Buck (Chemistry)
Jessica Anne Cotturone (Computing and Data Science)
Paige A. Drury (Chemistry)
Athena Catharina Engholm (Astronomy)
Zackary Devin Epright (Chemistry)
Carla Maria Farris (Earth Science and Environmental Change)
Nicolas D. Guerra (Physics)
Wesley Ho (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Sneha Jayaram (Chemistry)
Hannah J. King (Chemistry)
Parker Ashton Kintigh (Chemistry)
Justin Ryan Kurak (Chemistry)
Yinuan Liang (Mathematics and Physics)
Sophie M. Mazure (Chemistry)
MaryGrace Elizabeth McAfee (Chemistry)
Aiden Parente (Chemistry)
Michael D. Robertson (Physics)
Lucia Rodriguez (Chemistry)
Johanna Marie Schmitz (Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences)
Katherine Jean Selvaggio (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Aarav Shah (Mechanical Science and Engineering)
Kellen T. Sharpe (Chemistry)
Annika S. Srinivasan (Mechanical Science and Engineering)
Nicole Jasmine Wandrey (Chemistry)