Christopher Carter, Jared Cronin, Matthew Duggan, Sarah Mott, Samantha Rush and Grace Thaggard have been selected as scholars for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. They will receive three years of funding to support graduate-level study and research.

Alexia Crockett, Laurent Duverglas, Chloe Keck, Abigail Kreuser, Lauren Puleo, Nuri Smith and Sarah Stone were recognized as honorable mentions. This is a significant national achievement recognizing the strong merit of their applications.

These 13 students join a 27 year legacy of success at the university. UofSC has produced NSF Graduate Research Fellowship scholars or honorable mentions annually since 1995. In the previous decade, more than 70 Gamecocks have earned this award.

Why it matters: This fellowship, valued at $138,000, recognizes the intellectual merit and broader impacts of scholars’ proposed research projects. South Carolina's NSF Graduate Research Fellowship recipients have a history of  success in academia and the private sector. Scholars have attended graduate school at MIT, Harvard and Duke University and gone on to have careers as CTOs, researchers and professors at institutions across the globe.

Who they are:

• Christopher Carter is a 2021 graduate of the College of Engineering and Computing. He is currently a graduate student at MIT whose research focuses on developing new materials and manufacturing processes for aerospace applications. As an undergraduate at UofSC, Carter was selected to participate in the GEM National Consortium and received the South Carolina Space Grant Consortium Minorities in STEM Research Fellowship.
• Jared Cronin is a member of the Honors College and a McNair Scholar, one of the university’s top merit awards, given to 20 out-of-state students each year. Cronin, whose research focuses on power electronics, is pursuing a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. He is also a 2022 recipient of the DoD National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship.
• Matthew Duggan is a senior biological sciences and computer sciences double major who will graduate from the Honors College with leadership distinction. He is a 2021 Goldwater Scholar who conducted undergraduate research with the Senner and Mousea Lab. His graduate research will focus on marine bioacoustics.
• Sarah Mott, an Honors College student majoring in psychology and minoring in neuroscience, will also be graduating with leadership distinction in May. Since Mott’s sophomore year of high school, she has been conducting research with professor Susan Wood. Mott will pursue a Ph.D. in neuroscience with the goal of pursuing tenure-track at a research institution.
• Samantha Rush is a member of the Honors College and a recipient of the Carolina Scholarship, one of the university’s top merit awards, given to 20 in-state students each year. Rush, a senior chemistry major with a psychology and environmental studies minor, will begin a Ph.D. program in chemical oceanography at the University of Connecticut in the fall. Rush is a 2020 recipient of the NOAA Hollings Scholarship and aims to conduct research for NOAA following graduate school.
• Grace Thaggard is a graduate student completing her Ph.D. in chemistry. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, where she was selected as a DAAD RISE recipient. Thaggard currently works with professor Natalia Shustova designing materials for the energy sector and promoting science education. She is also the recipient of the excellence in teaching award from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Students interested in learning more about graduate or undergraduate fellowships should contact National Fellowships & Scholar Programs.