Southern Miss Senior Brown Receives Graduate Research Fellowship
Tue, 04/15/2014 - 02:39pm | By: Nikki Smith
Tyler Brown, a senior polymer science major at The University of Southern Mississippi, has been recognized by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) with financial support to attend graduate school.
Brown of Biloxi, Miss., plans to pursue his doctorate at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Biomolecular Science and Engineering Program with an emphasis in Biophysics and Bioengineering.
“Acquiring a Ph.D. in graduate school on average takes five to six years to complete,” Brown said. “Because three of the potential six years are funded by the NSF, this opens a lot of doors and opportunities that I would not otherwise have access to.”
Southern Miss alum Daniel Hinton, now attending graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, was also named a Fellow in the program. Michael Sims, a senior polymer science major at Southern Miss, was recognized with honorable mention.
The National Science Foundation's (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is a prestigious fellowship that recognizes and provides financial support for exceptional students in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.
The fellowship includes a $32,000 annual stipend, $12,000 cost-of-education allowance to the institution, international research and professional development opportunities and extreme science and engineering discovery environment (XSEDE) supercomputer access over the course of three years.
“These and many other opportunities provided to me by the University of Southern Mississippi have helped me get to the point where I am today,” Brown said. “The NSF Fellowship would not have been within my reach if it was not for the wonderful faculty and staff at Southern Miss, especially my advisor Dr. Sarah Morgan, as well as the national scholarship coordinator at USM, Robyn Curtis.”
“As always, I hope to inform others in my future career about the wonderful time I had while at USM and hope to leave Southern Miss better than I found it,” he said.
Brown is the son of Dwight and Prudence Brown.
Students interested in applying for the NSF or other national scholarship opportunities should contact the national scholarship officer, Robyn Curtis, at 601-266-4263 or robyn.curtisFREEMississippi.”