Selected in the First Round…

Now that the announcements have been distributed, the INSGC staff can take a bit of a breath and survey the first set of scholarship, fellowship, and internship awards for 2011-12.  Since the official name of the Space Grant NASA program is “The National Space Grant College Scholarship and Fellowship Program,” you can correctly guess that scholarships and fellowships are a major focus of what we do and why we exist.  In fact, there are only a few non-negotiable elements of how INSGC spends its NASA funds, and almost all of them are tied directly to the scholarship and fellowship piece.  NASA requires us to spend 25% of our total budget on scholarships and fellowships; for us in INSGC, these fellowships also involve opportunities at NASA Centers. 

INSGC is also quite fortunate to have a population of excellent students at a range of institutions, so there are of course challenges associated with giving out awards to the most deserving students.  The NASA internships are the easiest—the student has to apply to one or more NASA Centers, and then they have to be selected by researchers at those Centers.  Having said “the easiest,” that doesn’t make the process easy.  In 2011, there were 71 students from eligible Indiana institutions (only students from our 12 academic affiliates are eligible for funding) who applied to NASA internship positions through the online website system.  Approximately 12 were selected (this is already an acceptance rate of less than 20%), but of those, roughly half had other offers (either positions outside of NASA, or NASA opportunities that did not require INSGC funding).  Thus, we have a total of six outstanding students involved in NASA summer internships.  Each of them receives a summer fellowship stipend, and a travel allowance of $500. Their names, schools, and NASA Center placements are below:

Student                               Affiliate                        NASA Center

James Cutright                     Ball State               Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Adam Harden                       Purdue WL            Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)

Timothy Harris                     Purdue WL            Langley Research Center (LRC)

Paul Johnson                        Purdue WL            Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Nicholas Kowalczyk            Purdue WL            Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Kevin Tait                             Purdue WL            Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)

I know what you’re thinking—why all the Purdue folks?  Well, students at Purdue know that the best way to work at NASA is to get an internship at NASA, and they tell each other to apply.  Of the 71 students from Indiana, 57 were Purdue students—so, the acceptance rate is still pretty low, and thus being selected for a NASA internship for INSGC funding is still a highly competitive process.  In most cases, those students will be starting their internships next week—as you might guess, that was our highest priority to set up those awards as we received selection information from NASA.

The scholarship process is even more complex.  With 12 academic affiliates, and a variety of disciplines, it can be hard to get a good mix of students.  Sometimes, I feel like it’s a bad thing to encourage more competition, only to say “no” to more students.  But, as we see more and more applicants from across the range of INSGC colleges and universities, the value of an INSGC undergraduate scholarship or Master’s fellowship goes up.  (I won’t talk about the doctoral fellowships here, because the number of eligible institutions is so much smaller; it’s not the same process, or discussion.)  We try to keep the scholarships at a level that is large enough to mean something at every institution, but small enough that we can award a decent number across all of our affiliates.  Over the past three or so years, that level is $1500—enough to be worth at least a year’s worth of books at any school.  That enables us to award at least 25 undergraduate scholarships overall, and at least one to each of the academic affiliates who have more than one applicant. 

This list starts looking more like the list of a sports network’s mock draft projections, and in a way, that’s a good analogy.  A scholarship isn’t proof that the student will do well in a particular major or at a specific school, but it is our guess.  We’re making a bet that these are good folks, who are likely to excel.  We at INSGC want to be part of this process, and we hope that our support helps them be more successful.  So, the first round picks, with name, year, affiliate, and major, are:

Last Name	First Name	Major	Affiliate
Anderson	Carly	Mathematics/ Secondary Education (double-major)	Valpo
Baldwin	Markell	Electrical Engineering	Valpo
Cavanagh	Patrick	Computer Engineering	IUPUI
Cheek	Wesley	Physics	Valpo
Dibble II	Christopher	Computer Science	Ball
Fry	Shaun	Construction Engineering Technology	IPFW
Gosmeyer	Catherine	Astrophysics	IU
Heibel	Chelsea	Chemistry	USI
Hein	Alexander	Engineering	PUWL
Inman	Vincent	Mathematics Teaching: Secondary Education	PUC
Joyce	Tara	Electrical Engineering & Computer Engineering	IPFW
Khandoker	Azfar	Computer Science Honors	PUWL
Knight	Frances	Biomedical Engineering	PUWL
Marsh	Ashley	Mechanical engineering	PUWL
Mickey	Jessica	Biology	IUPUI
Neuer	Eric	Mechanical Engineering Technology	IPFW
Pheasant	HannahJoy	Agricultural Engineering	PUWL
Phillippi	Elizabeth	Chemistry and Biology	Valpo
Spoentgen	Nicolas	Aeronautical Engineering	PUWL
Storrer	Logan	Engineering	USI
Thompson	Sarah	Physics and Astronomy	Ball
Volk	Annette	Mechanical Engineering	UE
Wadzinski	Anne	Secondary Mathematics Education	IU
Whitney	David	Computer Science	Ball
Worthington	Sarah	Biomedical Engineering	PUWL

Next month, I will be in Jasper to congratulate four new winners of the Grissom Memorial Scholarships for local high school seniors attending Purdue in STEM majors.  I am proud of our opportunity to supplement those students’ scholarships with INSGC scholarship awards, and provide an ongoing recognition of the spacefaring legacy that Gus Grissom has left for all of us in Indiana.

We’re still processing the details of Master’s and Doctoral Fellowships; stay tuned for more on each of those students.  I should also point out that, if you’re not a first round selection for the undergraduate or graduate awards, that doesn’t automatically mean you’re rejected.  There are possibilities for additional funding augmentations, and our assumptions are that we will be funding additional students.  We just don’t have those numbers yet.

So, if you’re on one of these lists, or you’ve been an awardee in the past, we want to hear from you and let us know how you’re doing and whether INSGC has made a difference.