The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced today the 2026 awards in its Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), a prestigious and competitive fellowship that helps support outstanding graduate research across the country.
Of those offered awards, 23 are currently UW–Madison graduate students. Eight current UW–Madison undergraduates were also offered the award for their graduate study. Additionally, 22 UW–Madison students were recognized with honorable mentions from NSF.
UW–Madison strongly encourages senior undergraduates and first-year graduate students to apply to this fellowship.
The 2026 UW–Madison graduate student awardees are:
- Nadja Aldarondo Quiñones, Astronomy
- Joshua Alexander, Biomedical Engineering
- Austin Becksvoort, Chemistry
- Matthew Benavides, Economics
- Dan Bially Levy, Information
- Bella Cherin, Chemistry
- Wyatt Cummings, Wildlife Ecology
- Nicholas Cutsail, Physics
- Grace DeCostanza, Chemistry
- Brandon Friend, Physics
- Jonathan Gregory, Computer Science
- Jasmine Groves, Wildlife Ecology
- Mary Everett Hancock, Economics
- Edward Heinen, Environmental Chemistry and Technology
- Dante James, Microbiology Doctoral Training Program
- Peyton Lancaster, Biomedical Engineering
- Jessica Lipschultz, Comparative Biomedical Sciences
- Freyja Moser, Botany
- Nyasha Musoni, Chemistry
- Marissa Perry, Astronomy
- Maxwell Phillips, Computer Sciences
- Tyler Ramos, Cellular & Molecular Biology
- Benjamin Thomas, Chemistry
The undergraduate student awardees and their proposed field of study are:
- Muhammad Ashiq, Machine Learning
- Natalie Hooven, Chemical Engineering
- Max Khanov, Machine Learning
- Austin MacIntyre, Chemistry of Materials
- Ann McGrath-Flinn, Environmental and/or Ecological Engineering
- Ethan Warrington, Chemical Catalysis
- Alissa Choi, Paleoclimate
- Valeria Diaz Moreno, Quantum Information Engineering