FW: Montana State University alumni win NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

BOZEMAN — Five recent Montana State University graduates who began their research careers at MSU have each been awarded prestigious Graduate Research Fellowships by the National Science Foundation. 

Clarissa DeLeon, Michael Espinal, Hammad Khan and Caleb Rux, alumni from the MSU Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering, and Jaxen Godfrey, a graduate from the College of Letters and Science, will each receive an annual stipend of $34,000 for three years, plus $12,000 annually to help cover tuition and fees, allowing them to focus on research. 

“The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship is one of the most distinctive honors for a graduate student in the sciences,” said Jason Carter, MSU vice president for research, economic development and graduate education. “It takes great students and mentors, and I am proud of the culture developing at MSU on this front. These awards make a true impact on important issues and developing careers.” 

Clarissa DeLeon 

DeLeon earned her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering with a minor in optics and photonics from MSU in 2020 and received the 2020 MSU Award for Excellence, a designation given to 40 graduating seniors. She is now pursuing a doctorate in optical sciences at the University of Arizona. With adviser Meredith Kaki, she studies how wildfire smoke affects predictable light patterns in the atmosphere, which is crucial to enhancing climate models. 

“The fellowship not only helps open doors in my current research,” DeLeon said, “I plan to be a professor, and this NSF fellowship shows belief in my future as a leader in research, as a first-generation graduate student this is huge for my success.” 

During her years as an undergraduate at MSU, she worked with Professor Joe Shaw, director of MSU’s Optical Technology Center, to help develop laser-based systems for detecting insects as part of an effort to study insect populations and ecology in national parks. 

Michael Espinal 

Espinal graduated last fall with a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and plans to use the NSF fellowship to pursue a doctorate starting this August at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He worked with professors Chelsea Heveran, Cecily Ryan and Adrienne Phillips to research how to use microbes to help incorporate recycled plastic into concrete. He plans to continue researching materials at MIT. 

“Doing undergraduate research at MSU, no doubt, shaped my future trajectory,” Espinal said. “I was fortunate to get my hands on lab equipment so early in my career — at an actual R1 research institution.”  

MSU is designated as an R1 university by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education for its very high research activity. Among the 146 institutions in the nation that receive an R1 classification, only MSU and Utah State University have an enrollment profile of “very high undergraduate.”   

Hammad Khan 

Khan, who is from Billings, earned his bachelor’s in electrical engineering from MSU in 2020 and is now pursuing a doctorate in biomedical engineering at Purdue University. His ongoing research to develop neuroscience devices got its start while working with Anja Kunze, associate professor in MSU’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, studying the brain’s tiny electrical signals to develop treatments for degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s.  

As a part of Purdue’s Nano Neurotechnology Lab, Khan and his adviser Krishna Jayant are harnessing advances in nanoelectronics, bioelectronics and optics to understand how the brain works.  

“I think having the opportunity at MSU to get early exposure to research and grant writing is key,” Khan said. “The fellowship will give me a lot of ammunition to springboard into my own project.” 

Caleb Rux 

Rux, also from Billings, earned his bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and received the MSU Award for Excellence in the spring of 2020.  

“I’m really grateful for the opportunity that MSU provides to undergraduates,” Rux said. “I learned that I don’t have to already have an undergraduate education under my belt to make meaningful contributions to the lab.” 

In addition to working in Heveran’s lab to study how the behavior of bone cells called osteocytes affect bone material properties, he completed research at the University of Nevada on a previous NSF-sponsored project in 2019. He is now in a bioengineering doctoral program housed at the University of California, Berkeley and University of California, San Francisco. Working in the lab of Sophie Dumont, he researches how force is generated and dissipated by cells during division. 

Jaxen Godfrey 

Godfrey, a Great Falls native, earned her bachelor’s degree in physics with a minor in math in 2020 and is now pursuing a doctorate in physics at the University of Oregon. During her time at MSU, Godfrey worked on a variety of research projects, including atmospheric science as a part of the Montana Space Grant Consortium and physics education. But the one that struck her interest the most, with former MSU professor Nicolás Yunes, was focused on explaining the mind-bending behavior of black holes using the theory of general relativity first developed by Albert Einstein. 

Her research as an undergraduate shaped her application for the NSF fellowship and desire to continue researching after earning her doctoral degree, Godfrey said.  

“I was encouraged to do research as an undergraduate, and that’s probably why I am where I am now.”  

 -ed-

This story is available on the Web at: http://www.montana.edu/news/22069