The Office of Fellowships and Scholar Programs is pleased to announce Brandon Bolton and Eduardo Romero have each been awarded a GEM National Consortium Fellowship.  The GEM program seeks to enhance the value of the nation’s human capital by increasing the participation of underrepresented groups at the master’s and doctoral levels in engineering and science.  The fellowship, in conjunction with the GEM graduate institution and GEM employer, provides a stipend, full tuition and fees, and a paid summer internship.  More than 4,000 GEM Fellowships have been awarded since the program's inception 42 years ago.

Bolton graduated this May from the College of Engineering and Computing with a major in Chemical Engineering and minors in Nuclear Engineering and Chemistry.  He was a Watson Brown Scholar, USC Dean’s Scholar, Georgia Tech Focus Scholar, Palmetto Fellow, and Richard W. Benjamin Memorial Scholar. Bolton was also recipient of the Freshman Excellence Award and Celebration of Excellence Award, as well as a participant in the CEINT Summer Internship Program.  A member of the American Nuclear Society, Bolton also served as the President of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), where he managed and planned the AIChE National Conference in California, and was the Vice President of Mortar Board.  He has performed multiple research projects at USC and other universities, resulting in numerous presentations and publications. At USC, Bolton has studied the synthesis of Pt using Strong Electrostatic Adsorption (SEA) over various carbon structure supports, as well as adsorption of DMAB on Pt/AI203 for the optimization of bimetallic catalyst synthesis.  At Carnegie Mellon, he researched the application of metal oxide nanomaterials for the removal of viruses in drinking water; at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, he studied the dehydration of fructose for the formation of hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF).  After his internship this summer with the National Renewable Energy Lab, Bolton will study at Purdue University in pursuit of a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering. He ultimately aims to become a professor.

Romero graduated Summa Cum Laude this May from the South Carolina Honors College with a major in Computer Science and minor in Mathematics.  A 2017 Hispanic Scholarship Fund recipient, Eduardo was also a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the National Honors Society of Collegiate Scholars.  His GEM internship will be at Adobe Systems Incorporated, where he will work to use Deep Learning algorithms for image classification to provide new tools to the analysts of Adobe’s Target team.  Eduardo plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the Ohio State University and then a career in private sector research.

To learn more about the GEM Fellowship visit http://www.gemfellowship.org/.  GEM Fellowship candidates are supported by the University’s Office of Fellowships and Scholar Programs, established in 1994 to assist students for national fellowship competitions, and by the University of South Carolina’s GEM advisor, Dr. Mike Matthews of the College of Engineering and Computing.  Of this year’s winners, Dr. Matthews noted “Our students in CEC have shown again that they are competitive with the best and brightest in the country at competing for prestigious fellowships, and for entry into well-recognized graduate programs. We are committed to helping all our students achieve their goals, while equipping the future research workforce for the nation.”

To learn more about national fellowships and competitions visit www.sc.edu/ofsp.