{"id":43173,"date":"2026-05-29T15:03:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T19:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/?p=43173"},"modified":"2026-06-10T16:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T20:00:12","slug":"gator-engineers-selected-for-prestigious-nsf-graduate-research-fellowships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/honors-awards\/gator-engineers-selected-for-prestigious-nsf-graduate-research-fellowships\/","title":{"rendered":"Gator engineers selected for prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowships\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Of the 2,500 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships<\/a> awarded this academic year, 17 winners were Gator engineers from the University of Florida\u2019s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering. The students \u2014 and recent graduates \u2014 were selected because\u202fof their exemplary work and contributions to their respective departments.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NSF fellowships recognize outstanding graduate students from across the country in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Recipients are identified as high-potential, early-career scientists and engineers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BME<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"Alexander<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Alexander Armstrong<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The alumni recipient conducted undergraduate research at UF Biomedical Engineering, later spending two years at Massachusetts General Hospital.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Supraja<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Supraja Ganti<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ganti is a first-year Ph.D. student conducting cancer-immunotherapy research under the guidance of Carlos Rinaldi-Ramos.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Evangeline<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Evangeline Meyler <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meyler is recognized for her work in musculoskeletal tissue engineering and mechanobiology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Veronica<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Veronica Ramos Rodriguez<\/a>\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodriguez conducted undergraduate research with Ruogu Fang, Ph.D., in the SMILE Lab.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ChE<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"Michaela\u202fHaensgen\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Michaela\u202fHaensgen<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haensgen\u202fis a first-year chemical engineering doctoral student in the Abil lab.<\/strong>\u202f  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Cianna<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Cianna Rene Scutero<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scutero graduated this spring with a bachelor\u2019s degree in chemical engineering and a minor in biomolecular engineering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ECE<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"Dillon<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Dillon Vann <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vann is a first-year PhD student in Volker Sorger’s, Ph.D., Photonics Lab. His research focuses on silicon photonics, Fourier optics and solid-state physics applications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

EEd<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"Matheus<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Matheus Kunzler Maldaner<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matheus Kunzler Maldaner is a second-year master\u2019s student in the Artificial Intelligence Systems program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

ISE<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"Anna<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Anna Yang<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yang is pursuing\u202fa\u202fdoctorate specializing in\u202fhuman\u202ffactors engineering and computational biomechanics.\u202f   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

MAE<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"Konnor<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Konnor Hole\u00a0<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hole, a first-year graduate student, is focusing on printing methods and material systems for organic synthetic tissues at the Florida Additive Manufacturing and Systems Integration Laboratory.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n
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\"Reece<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Reece Lawrence\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawrence is a graduate student in the Neuromechanics of Mobility Lab, where he designs protocols for capturing and analyzing movements.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n
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\"Dominic<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Dominic Meler<\/a>\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meler is a first-year Ph.D. candidate in the KIM Space Lab, where he explores heat transfer in two-phase cryogenic systems.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n
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\"Kevin<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Kevin Rubin\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rubin recently graduated magna cum laude with honors. At UF, he led a team of undergraduate students in the Fluids and Adaptive Structures (FASt) Lab.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n
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\"Trevor<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Trevor Yates\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yates is a fourth-year undergraduate student in MAEs’s Fluids and Adaptive Structures (FASt) Lab, focused on adaptive and multi-stable structures.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

MSE\/Nuclear<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"Adriana<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Adriana Isabelle LaVopa <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LaVopa graduated and will start as a materials science and engineering doctoral student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign this fall.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n
\n
\"Rachel<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Rachel Rigsby <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u202fIn addition to becoming an NSF\u202fGraduate Research Fellow, Rigsby\u202fbecame a fellow\u202fof the\u202fRickover Fellowship Program<\/a> this year.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n
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\"Jenny<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Jenny Xue\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During her time at UF, Xue conducted research on thin-film solar cells and 2D materials for flexible electronics.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of the 2,500 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships awarded this academic year, 16 winners were Gator engineers from the University of Florida\u2019s Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":41803,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-templates\/single-sidebar-none.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"featured_post":"off","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-honors-awards","category-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43173"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43265,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43173\/revisions\/43265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}