Three are Awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships

Katelyn Connell ’04, Gabriella Engelhart ’05, and Elizabeth Ponder ’04 have been awarded three-year Graduate Research Fellowships from the National Science Foundation.

Engelhart, of York, Pa., a chemical engineering major and Marquis Scholar, will pursue a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Connell is pursuing a Ph.D. in chemistry at University of California, Berkeley. She graduated with a B.S. in biochemistry. Ponder is pursuing a Ph.D. in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine. She is a biochemistry graduate with a second, individualized major in cultural biomedicine.

They are the latest in a long list of recent Lafayette recipients of prestigious national and international scholarships and fellowships for undergraduate and post-graduate study. For information on applying for scholarships and fellowships, contact Julia A. Goldberg, assistant dean of studies, (610) 330-5521. See also the latest edition of Aristeia, which showcases the achievements and reflections of outstanding current and recent Lafayette students who represent the growing number of students at the College pursuing both academic excellence and engagement with civic life and social justice.

Engelhart’s award marks the third consecutive year that a Lafayette woman chemical engineering major has received an NSF Graduate Fellowship. Last year, Lauren Sefcik ’04 received an award to pursue doctoral studies in biomedical engineering at University of Virginia. In 2003, Jessica Molek ’03 received an award to pursue a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Penn State University.

In 2000, electrical engineering major Ian Rippke ’00 was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to pursue a Ph.D. at Cornell University.

NSF Graduate Research Fellowships provide three years of financial support for graduate study leading to research-based master’s or doctoral degrees in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and to research-based Ph.D. degrees in science education. Awards carry an annual stipend of $30,000 and an annual cost-of-education allowance of $10,500.

NSF recognized Alison Campbell ’04 with honorable mention for the second straight year. Campbell earned a B.S. in biochemistry at Lafayette and is pursuing a Ph.D. in chemistry at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Engelhart, Ponder, and Campbell are three of the four Lafayette students who were awarded the Goldwater Scholarship, the nation’s premier undergraduate award of its type in the fields of mathematics, science, and engineering, for 2003-04. The fourth, Meghan Ramsey ’04, is pursuing an M.D. at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Engelhart was also awarded a Udall Scholarship for the current academic year to go along with her Goldwater. Last summer she spent two weeks conducting research in Germany with James K. Ferri, assistant professor of chemical engineering, at the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interface Science in Golm-Potsdam, as part of her yearlong honors thesis. Engelhart presented her research at the annual national meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in Austin, Texas, earning second place in the poster competition.

She spent a summer researching ways of removing color from the wastewater discharge of pulp from paper mills as an EXCEL research assistant to Javad Tavakoli, associate professor and head of chemical engineering. She presented her results at an AIChE national meeting in San Francisco. As a sophomore, she studied under top environmental scientists in the Semester in Environmental Science program at Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Mass.

At Lafayette’s All-College Honors Convocation April 17, Engelhart received the chemical engineering department’s Charles Duncan Fraser Prize and Dr. E.L. McMillen-K.K. Malhotra ’49 Prize.