UCLA Engineering Students Receive 2022 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
UCLA Samueli
Fourteen UCLA Samueli undergraduate and graduate students have received the prestigious 2022 Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.
The three-year fellowship program recognizes and supports outstanding students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research in a master’s or doctoral degree program at accredited U.S. institutions. Each recipient will receive a $34,000 annual stipend and an additional $12,000 for tuition and fees.
Below is a brief overview of the 2022 UCLA Samueli NSF Fellows:
David Abraham
- Graduate degree program: Materials Science and Engineering
- Research Interests: Metamaterials, thermal emission, energy management
- Faculty Advisor: Aaswath Raman
- Undergraduate Institution: UCLA
Sei Hoon Chang
- Major: Computer Science, Minor in Bioinformatics (B.S.)
- Research Interests: Computational analysis of transcriptomic dysregulation in genetic disease, applying machine learning techniques to reach new conclusions in understanding large genomic datasets
- Faculty Advisor: Eleazar Eskin
- Intended Graduate Institution: Columbia University
Yu-Hsi (Ellie) Cheng
- Major: Computer Science and Engineering (B.S.)
- Research Interests: Probabilistic programming languages
- Faculty Advisors: Guy Van den Broeck and Todd Millstein (UCLA), and Steven Holtzen (Northeastern University)
- Intended Graduate Institution: MIT
Kristida Chhour
- Major: Civil and Environmental Engineering (B.S.)
- Research Interests: Management of water and environment for food security.
- Faculty Advisors: Sanjay Mohanty
- Intended Graduate Institution: UC Berkeley
Emily Dunn
- Major: Chemical Engineering (B.S.)
- Research Interests: Electrochemistry and renewableenergy
- Faculty Advisors: Yi Tang
- Intended Graduate Institution: Caltech
William Flanagan
- Graduate degree program: Mechanical Engineering
- Research Interests: Attachment of prosthetic limbs, biomechanics
- Faculty Advisors: Tyler Clites
- Undergraduate Institution: Georgia Tech
Tora Gao
- Graduate degree program: Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
- Research Interests: Engineering T cellsexpressing chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) against solid tumors with a focus on overcoming and remodeling the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment
- Faculty Advisors: Yvonne Chen
- Undergraduate Institution: University of Washington
Aisha Kermiche
- Graduate degree program: Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Research Interests: Quantum biology, complexity of computation
- Faculty Advisors: Clarice Aiello
- Undergraduate Institution: UCLA
Sung Gyung Lee
- Major: Chemical Engineering
- Research Interests: Metabolic engineering, synthetic biology
- Faculty Advisors: Junyoung Park
- Intended Graduate Institution: University of Texas at Austin
Rohit Nema
- Major: Computer Science and Mathematics
- Research Interests: Cryptography, multiparty computation, computer science theory
- Faculty Advisors: Rafail Ostrovsky
- Intended Graduate Institution: Stanford University
Lindsey Parsons
- Graduate degree program: Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
- Research Interests: Nanophotonic materials for photovoltaic applications
- Faculty Advisors: Carissa Eisler
- Undergraduate Institution: Auburn University
Kerry Kangdi Yu
- Graduate degree program: Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Research Interests: Superconducting qubits and mesoscopic optics
- Faculty Advisors: Chee Wei Wong
- Undergraduate Institution: UC Berkeley
Ellin (Qing Lan) Zhao
- Graduate degree program: Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Research Interests: Fairness in computational imaging for diverse people; light transport models for traditionally difficult imaging settings (i.e. low-light scenes, highly scattering media)
- Faculty Advisors: Achuta Kadambi
- Undergraduate Institution: UC Berkeley
Elizabeth Zhang
- Major: Chemical Engineering
- Research Interests: Synthesizing novel organic materials for photovoltaics and energy storage applications
- Faculty Advisors: Yuzhang Li
- Intended Graduate Institution: Stanford University
In addition, eight UCLA Samueli alumni have received NSF Graduate Research Fellowships for 2022: Alhad Deshpande, UC Berkeley; Norleakvisoth Lim, UC Santa Barbara; Christopher Martin, University of Texas at Austin; Jared Rivera, MIT; Jamie Salinger, Georgia Tech; Thomas Tran, Caltech; Andrew Wilhelm, Cornell University and Timothy Yu, University of Washington.
* No photo available for Kermiche
Natalie Weber and Dannela Lagrimas contributed to this story.