The University of Kentucky Office of Nationally Competitive Awards has announced that James Tyler Nichols in the UK College of Engineering has been selected to receive government-funded National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships. Nichols, a mechanical engineering graduate student from Taylorsville, Kentucky, will pursue research in aerospace engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
NSF Fellows receive a three-year annual stipend of $34,000 along with a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees for a research-based master's or doctoral degree in a STEM (science, technology, engineering or mathematics) field. Annually, the NSF awards approximately 1,500 fellowships from an applicant pool of over 12,000.
Nichols is currently the project lead on Kentucky Re-entry Universal Payload System (KRUPS) project, is excited about the autonomy the fellowship will afford him in the future.
“This award is allowing me the opportunity to have freedom in my doctoral research. I will be able to forge my own path in research and learning while attaining my Ph.D.”
The NSF GRFP is the country’s oldest graduate fellowship program directly supporting graduate students since 1952. GRFP is a critical program in NSF's overall strategy to develop a globally engaged workforce necessary to ensure the nation's leadership in advancing science and engineering research and innovation. A hallmark of GRFP is its contribution to increasing the diversity of the STEM workforce, including geographic distribution, as well as the participation of women, underrepresented minorities, persons with disabilities and veterans.