Three students who graduated from Southwestern in 2009 and another who graduated in 2010 have received grants from the National Science Foundation to support their studies in graduate school.  

The NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program is for students who are college seniors, first-year graduate students or second-year graduate students. The fellowships are funded for up to three years and provide students with a yearly stipend of $30,000. The NSF typically funds fewer than 10 percent of the applications it receives for these fellowships.

The 2009 graduates who were awarded NSF fellowships are Stephen Foster, Jenny Howell and Whitney Johnson.  

Foster studied computer science and philosophy at Southwestern and did research with several professors, including Mathematics Professor Rick Denman and Computer Science Professor Walt Potter. He is now in graduate school for software engineering at the University of California-San Diego.  

Howell majored in psychology at Southwestern and did research with Psychology Professor Traci Giuliano. She is in graduate school at the University of Florida.  

Johnson studied biochemistry at Southwestern and did research with Chemistry Professor Maha Zewail Foote. She is now in graduate school at Stanford University. 

The 2010 graduate who received a fellowship was Jessica Bolton. Bolton was an animal behavior major and chemistry minor at Southwestern and did research with Psychology Professor Fay Guarraci. She is now in a Ph.D. program for neuroscience at Duke University.  

This is the second year in a row that four Southwestern alumni have received NSF fellowships to fund their graduate studies.