New Round of NSF Fellowships Support Pitt Engineering Graduate Students

The National Science Foundation announced that two current students and one alumna from the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering are recipients of its prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) awards.

According to the NSF, the GRFP helps to ensure the quality, vitality, and strength of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. The five-year Fellowship provides three years of financial support, including an annual stipend of $37,000. This year’s GRFP cohort includes 1,000 students from a wide spectrum of U.S. higher education.

In addition to the 1,000 fellowships, the NSF also named a record 3,018 applicants as honorable mentions — an award that does not provide funding but which young researchers can add to their résumés to boost their standing and reapply the following year. Six current and Swanson School students and one alumna received this honor.

“The GRFP is a highly competitive award and we’re proud of our winners and honorable mentions this year,” said Michele V. Manuel, U. S. Steel Dean of Engineering at Pitt. “This funding provides critical financial support for students to expand their research that benefits all of us. Even the Honorable Mention validates the importance of each student’s application and future potential." 

This year’s Swanson School awardees are:

Current Students

Heather M. Phillips, Engineering Science/Electrical and Computer Engineering 
Temperature-Piloted Area-Selective Atomic Layer Deposition with Thermoelectric Control

As high-performance computing drives breakthroughs in fields like AI, healthcare, and energy, the demand for efficient electronics is rapidly growing. Heather’s proposed research meets this challenge by advancing low-power semiconductor devices. Her work focuses on leveraging thermoelectric devices based on the Peltier effect to enhance thermally selective atomic layer deposition (TePASA), enabling precise control over material interfaces. This project builds on research she began as a DAAD RISE fellow with the Blick Group in Hamburg, Germany. “I’m grateful to so many faculty members at Pitt for guiding me on my research journey,” Heather said. “From developing technical research skills in Paul Ohodnicki’s lab to learning what it means to be an effective educator while collaborating with Mohamed Bayoumy on curriculum development in ECE, I’ve had the support to grow as both a researcher and educator here at Pitt.”

Katelin C. Rahn, Bioengineering 
Relationship between the Lipidome and Hemostatic Platelet Function in Traumatic Vessel Injury 

Traumatic injury is a growing area of interest within clinical and engineering research, and the assessment and development of new technologies to reduce the impact of traumatic hemorrhage in patients is one of Katelin’s goals as a PhD student. Her proposed research utilizes a custom microfluidic device to characterize platelet, von Willebrand Factor, and lipid interaction in trauma patient blood samples. Given the magnitude of preventable deaths in trauma and lack of clinical devices and therapies specifically idealized in this patient population, innovation in this space is crucial and requires novel approaches and discoveries. “This research wouldn’t be possible without my advisor Dr. Susan Shea, my mentor Dr. Matthew Neal, and the support from the Pitt Bioengineering department,” Katelin added.

Alumna (current school in parentheses) 

Annette G. Thompson, Chemical and Petroleum Engineering (University of Colorado at Boulder) 
Integrated Computational Approach for Guided Enzyme Design in Fatty Acid Synthesis

Annette's research focuses on understanding and redesigning the molecular “assembly lines” cells use to produce chemical precursors, with an emphasis on fatty acid synthesis. These systems rely on helper proteins to guide substrates through precise steps, yet how enzymes recognize the right carrier protein-substrate complexes remains unclear. Shes use molecular dynamics simulations and kinetic modeling to study these interactions and identify engineering targets to control product formation. By combining computational approaches with experimental collaboration, this work aims to accelerate the design of biotechnologies that produce a broader range of useful chemicals—more efficiently and precisely than nature alone. “I’m deeply grateful to my advisors, Dr. Jerome Fox and Dr. Michael Shirts, whose support and complementary expertise have been instrumental in shaping this research and enabling these collaborations,” Annette said. “I am also thankful for my time in Dr. Lei Li's lab at Pitt, where I gained invaluable experience and discovered my passion for graduate research.”

Honorable Mentions

Jacqueline Avila, Bioengineering 
Samarth Chopra, Electrical and Computer Engineering 
Kaelyn McClain, Bioengineering 
Collin Preszler, Bioengineering 
Stacia Subick, Chemical and Petroleum Engineering 
Andrew Stricklin, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science

Alumna Honorable Mention 

Stephanie Manasterski, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science (University of Alabama Huntsville)