Three TXST Students Awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships

SAN MARCOS — The National Science Foundation had named three Texas State students recipients of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Alexis Baide, a first-year master’s student in anthropology, Samantha Aziz, an undergraduate computer science major who has accepted admission into Texas State’s computer science doctoral program, and Alex Guzman, an undergraduate biology major who has applied for admission to Texas State’s population and conservation biology Master’s program, were the recipients.

Ivanna Robledo, a first-year graduate student pursuing her Master’s in anthropology, received an honorable mention.

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program helps ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and reinforces its diversity.

The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions. 

Fellows share in the prestige and opportunities that become available when they are selected. Fellows benefit from a three-year annual stipend of $34,000 along with a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees (paid to the institution), opportunities for international research and professional development, and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education they choose.

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship is specifically awarded to students who show promise as researchers, as opposed to a student’s research project.

Although students submit research plans as part of their application materials, selection is not based wholly on their proposed research, nor are students bound to the proposal submitted with the application.

Since 1952, NSF has funded more than 50,000 Graduate Research Fellowships out of more than 500,000 applicants. 

Currently, 42 fellows have gone on to become Nobel laureates and more than 450 have become members of the National Academy of Sciences. 

In addition, the Graduate Research Fellowship Program has a high rate of doctorate degree completion, with more than 70 percent of students completing their doctorates within 11 years.