NORMAN, OKLA. – Five current students at the University of Oklahoma, four from the Gallogly College of Engineering and one from the Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy, as well as four OU alumni, have been named 2024 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellows. This five-year fellowship awards students with a three-year annual stipend, allowance for tuition and fees and access to opportunities for NSF professional development.
Brigid Bernier earned an undergraduate degree in geosciences from the University of Connecticut and is currently pursuing a graduate degree at the University of Oklahoma.
Isaiah Gilley earned undergraduate degrees in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Oklahoma and is currently pursuing a graduate degree at Northwestern University.
Derek Madden will earn an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Oklahoma.
Maria Muñoz earned an undergraduate degree in ecology from the University of Oklahoma and is pursuing a graduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Daniel Pfaff earned an undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Oklahoma and is pursuing a graduate degree from the University of California-Santa Cruz.
Alexander Pham earned an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Oklahoma.
Sayre Tillery will earn an undergraduate degree in bioengineering and biomedical engineering from the University of Oklahoma in May 2024.
Tristan Timog will earn an undergraduate degree in bioengineering and biomedical engineering from the University of Oklahoma in May 2024.
Hamilton Young will earn an undergraduate degree in bioengineering and biomedical engineering from the University of Oklahoma in May 2024.
The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program is the country’s oldest fellowship program that directly supports graduate students in various STEM fields. Since 1952, NSF has funded over 70,000 Graduate Research Fellowships out of more than 500,000 applicants. Currently, 42 Fellows have gone on to become Nobel laureates, and more than 450 have become members of the National Academy of Sciences.
About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. As the state’s flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. OU was named the state’s highest-ranking university in U.S. News & World Report’s most recent Best Colleges list. For more information about the university, visit ou.edu.
Three University of Oklahoma graduate students have been named winners of the 2025 Three Minute Thesis competition, which challenges participants to explain their research in three minutes to a non-specialist audience.
Sarah Sharif, a researcher with the University of Oklahoma, has been awarded funding from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to create innovative light detectors that pick up mid-wave and long-wave infrared signals at higher temperatures than previously considered achievable.
A team from OU and WVU recently earned a five-year, $3.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how concept cigarillos influence the potential for addiction. The results will be used to inform the FDA’s impending flavor ban on cigar products and could have wider-reaching implications for other tobacco products that come in flavors, such as e-cigarettes and tobacco-free nicotine pouches.
