April 28, 2016

Four Young Alumni Earn NSF Research Fellowships

Four biology alumni have been awarded prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships. The awards are investments in the education of outstanding students who have the potential to contribute significantly to research, teaching, and innovations in science and engineering.

Four Lewis & Clark alumni—all of them biology majors—won prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships for demonstrating promise as leaders in their fields. The fellowships are investments in the education of outstanding students who have the potential to contribute significantly to research, teaching, and innovations in science and engineering. This year’s Lewis & Clark winners are:

  • Dale Forrister BA ’14, an evolutionary biology researcher at the University of Utah.

  • Kristine Lyon BA ’12, a research technician at Johns Hopkins University and the recipient of an NSF Honorable Mention in 2015.

  • Alexandra Nishida BA ’13, an instructor at Ecology Project International in Missoula, Montana.

  • Ian Voorhees BA ’12, a graduate student in biomedical sciences at Cornell University.

The NSF, an independent federal agency that supports fundamental science research and education, offers fellows three years of support for graduate studies that lead to research-based master’s or doctoral science and engineering degrees. Of the nearly 17,000 applicants this year, NSF selected 2,000 awardees from 488 baccalaureate institutions.

Since 1952, NSF has funded close to 50,000 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.  

Academic Awards & Fellowships

Biology Department