NSF Graduate Fellowship Recipients Prove Depth, Reach of Research Enterprise

Fourteen Northeastern University students and alumni have earned the 2019 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP) in recognition of their potential to make significant contributions to research, teaching and industrial applications in science, mathematics and engineering. The recipients include 10 students who completed or are about to complete their undergraduate studies at Northeastern and four current graduate students who did their baccalaureate work elsewhere. These prestigious fellowships will support the recipients’ graduate study toward research-based master’s and doctoral degrees with up to $138,000 in combined tuition and stipend funding for each recipient.

The number of students selected for this award, as well as the breadth of disciplines they represent, underscore the scope and vitality of Northeastern’s research enterprise, with 656 new tenured and tenure-track faculty hired–and a 229% increase in external research funding–since 2006. In 2015, Northeastern was named a “highest research activity” (“R-1”) university by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

We invite you to learn more about the pioneering research and future plans of our NSF Graduate Research Fellowship winners.

Kierstyn Anderson COS’17
At Northeastern Kierstyn studied chemistry and conducted research in Professor Eugene Smotkin’s lab on fuel cell membranes. She is now a graduate student at UCLA specializing in inorganic chemistry, and is currently working on elucidating the luminescent properties of boron cluster derivatives for their application in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and solar cells.

Victoria D’Agostino COE’19
Victoria is a bioengineering major with a concentration in cell and tissue engineering. She earned the NSF GRFP for graduate studies in bioengineering.

Yasmeen Farra PhD’22
Yasmeen is currently a second-year Ph.D. student in bioengineering here at Northeastern, conducting research with Professor Chiara Bellini. Within the field of cardiovascular tissue mechanics, Yasmeen’s research examines the health impacts of particle inhalation on the structure and integrity of the cardiovascular system, from sources such as cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and cannabis. Via a long-term study, Yasmeen seeks to understand the chronic effects of cannabis smoking on systemic physical and psychological health, both in adults and in adolescent development, with hopes that this work will have a tangible societal impact by increasing our understanding of the impacts of cannabis smoking over the course of a lifetime and informing public health policy decisions.

James Larisch Khoury’17
James is a PhD student in computer science at Harvard University. Broadly speaking, he researches computer systems and security; his specific interests include work on web security, web performance, virtualization, and secure distributed systems. With some of his Northeastern faculty mentors, he co-authored a paper that was awarded the 2017 IEEE Cybersecurity Award for Innovation.

Benjamin Moran COS’18
Ben is a marine biologist dedicated to using his prodigious talents to preserve the oceans at a moment of unprecedented ecological and political crisis. Earlier in 2019, he became the first Northeastern graduate to be named a Knight-Hennessy Scholar at Stanford University, where he will pursue his PhD in biology. Ben’s research on the genetic basis of speciation has implications for our understanding of evolutionary biology as well as efforts to preserve and protect threatened species.

Emily Navarrete COS’19
Emily is a biology major with a minor in Spanish. She earned an Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavor Award in Spring 2018 to conduct research and development of a solar powered, electrolytic groundwater remediation system that eliminates estrogenic molecules from agriculture based runoff water. The NSF GRFP will support her graduate study in biophysics.

Sarah Neshat COS’19
Sarah has accepted an offer to continue her education at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD, to pursue a PhD in Biomedical Engineering. She intends to explore the translational crossroads of drug delivery, biomaterials, and immunoengineering in the hopes of advancing knowledge and developing the next generation of therapies and technologies to improve the lives of patients. Sarah also earned the GEM Associate Fellowship to support her graduate studies.

Cassandra Nickles PhD’22
Cassandra is currently a PhD student in Northeastern’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering working with Dr. Edward Beighley. Her research surrounds NASA’s upcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission, seeking to answer the question: How will future SWOT measurements be useful for applications managing the world’s water resources? Specifically, she plans to optimize the unique spatiotemporal sampling of SWOT within a hydrologic modeling framework to better enable water management in regions with limited streamflow data.

Michelle O’Donnell COS’16
Michelle is a Master’s candidate in Water Resources Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on water resources planning and management. Michelle graduated from Northeastern with a BS in Environmental Science. While working towards her degree, she worked for the Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration in the River Instream Flow Stewards program, USGS in the New England Water Science Center, and in the Coastal Systems Group at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Since graduating, Michelle worked as the Watershed Management Assistant at the Cambridge Water Department, where she monitored water quality and quantity to inform reservoir management decisions.

Alexander Piers COE/COS’17
Alex is currently a graduate student at the University of Washington in the physics department, and his research focuses on searching for Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) physics using extremely sensitive semiconductor detectors. One experiment in which he is involved will utilize a novel target and detector style to improve sensitivity and background rejection in a neutrinoless double beta decay experiment, which if discovered, could help explain the excess of matter over antimatter in the universe. The other experiment, DAMIC, uses high purity silicon CCDs to try and capture images of dark matter–the abundant yet elusive substance that is five times more abundant than regular matter–scattering particles off silicon nuclei, thus attempting to take the first picture of dark matter.

Natalie Grace Schulz CSSH/COS’17
Grace Schulz studied history and biology at Northeastern, building a record of success in diverse intellectual pursuits. She conducted biology research on campus, at Pfizer, and in a developmental biology lab at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. She researched the history of food culture in France and co-founded a student organization that promotes best practices in inclusive playground design. Grace is currently a PhD student in Development, Regeneration, and Stem Cell Biology at the University of Chicago, with a particular interest in how neurons find and make connections. An in-depth understanding of the development of neurons could provide important guidance when exploring new therapies for neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s.

Laura South PhD’23
Laura is a first-year PhD student at Northeastern’s Khoury College of Computer Sciences. Her research focuses on the intersection of human-computer interaction and the social sciences, investigating the issues and risks inherent in the ways we interact with technology. She is interested in anything that involves the overlap of technology, statistics, and social sciences, but her greatest passions lie in applying data science, machine learning, and computer vision to complex social and economic issues like accessibility, privacy, and discrimination.

Minerva Teli COS’18
Minerva graduated from Northeastern with a degree in Chemistry and minors in environmental studies, mathematics, and civil engineering. She earned the NSF GRFP to support her work toward a PhD in environmental engineering. This fall she will begin her degree with the Membrane Innovation Laboratory at UC Berkeley in order to to address some of the most challenging issues in sustainable water supply development.

Katherine Vilardi PhD’22
Katherine is a PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern, working with Dr. Ameet Pinto. Katherine researches the ecophysiology of complete ammonia oxidizing bacteria (i.e., comammox). Her investigation of comammox is focused on elucidating comammox’s contribution to nitrification at drinking and wastewater treatment plants, and understanding its potential capability to optimize nitrogen removal.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

In addition, the following eight Northeastern undergraduates and alumni received Honorable Mentions in this year’s competition.

Anas Abou Allaban COE’19
Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering – Machine Learning

Molly Blevins COS’17
Chemistry – Chemical Measurement and Imaging
University of Texas at Austin

Jeanne Bloomberg COS’16
Geosciences – Marine Biology
Louisiana State University & Agricultural and Mechanical College

Noa Golan COS’16
Life Sciences – Neurosciences
Yale University

Tanner Jankins COS’17
Chemistry – Chemical Catalysis
The Scripps Research Institute

Kelly McKeon COS’17
Geosciences – Paleoclimate

Angela Saulsbery COS’15
Life Sciences – Neurosciences
Ohio State University

Yosif Zaki COS’18
Life Sciences – Neurosciences
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

The following current Northeastern graduate students received Honorable Mentions in this year’s competition.

Kate Duffy
Geosciences – Hydrology

Patricia Rubio Arzola
Life Sciences – Neurosciences

Erin Tuttle
Chemistry – Macromolecular, Supramolecular, and Nanochemistry