Larson, from Houston, will soon decide where to pursue her doctoral studies. She has been accepted to the University of California-Berkeley, Scripps College, Columbia University, the University of California-Irvine and California Institute of Technology.

NSF graduate fellowships offer recognition and three years of support for advanced study to approximately 900 outstanding graduate students in the mathematical, physical, biological, engineering, and behavioral and social sciences, including the history of science and the philosophy of science, and to research-based Ph.D. degrees in science education. Awards will carry a stipend for each fellow of $30,000 for a 12-month tenure and an annual cost-of-education allowance of $10,500, paid to the fellow’s institution in lieu of tuition and fees.

Larson is the fifth Southwestern student to receive a NSF graduate fellowship. She plans to pursue doctoral work in organic chemistry. At Southwestern, she received a Mundy Fellowship to work at the University of Amsterdam during summer 2003 and published a paper based on this research in the Journal of Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry. She has two other publications in the Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research.

“I have worked with many talented undergraduate research students over my career, but none as talented as Kimberly Larson,” says Professor of Chemistry Frank Guziec. “Kimberly not only excelled in the classroom, but demonstrated outstanding research skills both at Southwestern and last summer at the University of Amsterdam. This success was clearly recognized by the NSF Fellowship Committee. I am convinced that she is one of the best young scientists in the world.”