Bioengineering PhD student Joe De Rutte, advised by Prof. Dino DiCarlo, was awarded the Innovation Award by the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS) for his presentation “High-Throughput Encapsulation and Selection of Cells based on Antibody Secretion using Lab-on-a-Particle Technology”

Five UCLA Engineering Students Receive 2020 NSF Graduate Fellowships

Five UCLA Samueli engineering students — two graduate and three undergraduate students pursuing an advanced degree — have received the prestigious 2020 Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. The recipients are John Brewer, Richa Ghosh, Jamie Leonard, William Schmidt and Alexander Soohoo. The three-year fellowship program commends “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.” Recipients receive an annual stipend of $34,000 along with $12,000 designated for tuition and fees.

Please join us in congratulating this year’s recipients:

	John Brewer Graduate degree program: Materials Science and Engineering Research interests: Nanophotonics, photonic metamaterials, infrared and other non-visible wavelength photonic systems design and engineering. Faculty Advisor: Aaswath Raman Undergraduate Institution: University of Arizona
	Richa Ghosh Undergraduate major: Chemical Engineering Research interests: Catalysis, specifically using approaches in material synthesis, characterization, and kinetic and mechanistic studies for sustainable energy and fuel production Undergraduate Faculty Advisors: Dante Simonetti and Carlos Morales-Guio Future Graduate Program: Ph.D. program in chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
	Jamie Leonard Undergraduate major: Environmental Science (Concentration: Environmental Health), Minor: Environmental Engineering Research interests: Analyzing aeolian transport of microplastics (physics & health basis) Undergraduate Faculty Advisor: Sanjay Mohanty Future Graduate Program: Ph.D. program in water resources and environmental engineering at UCLA
	William Schmidt Graduate degree program: Bioengineering Research interests: Bacterial surface sensing and biofilm formation, immune signaling, self-assembly of DNA complexes, DNA origami. Faculty Advisor: Gerard Wong Undergraduate Institution: California Institute of Technology
	Alexander Soohoo Undergraduate Major: Chemical Engineering Research Interests: Currently studying fungal natural product biosynthesis, hoping to study protein engineering or metabolic engineering in graduate school Undergraduate Faculty Advisor: Yi Tang Future Graduate Program: Stanford University in chemical engineering

Two UCLA engineering alumni also received NSF graduate fellowships for 2020: Ethan Liang, now at Stanford University, and Kyle Liang, at Carnegie Mellon University.

This story is contributed by Zoe Curran

Kristen Froehlich is a PhD student in Dr. Elisa Franco’s lab studying RNA nanotechnology. She had previously studied Biomedical Engineering at NC State University with a concentration in biomaterials.

The Eugene V. Cota Robles Fellowship is for entering doctoral students who are interested in a career in college or university teaching and research. Individuals from cultural, racial, linguistic, geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds that are currently underrepresented in graduate education are especially encouraged to participate in the program. The intent of this fellowship is to provide access to higher education for students who might otherwise find it difficult or impossible to successfully pursue graduate study. Applicants must be nominated by their home department