Four doctoral students receive NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowships for education research
Four UW–Madison doctoral students are among the 35 selected to receive 2026 National Academy of Education (NAEd) and Spencer Dissertation Fellowships.
Four UW–Madison doctoral students are among the 35 selected to receive 2026 National Academy of Education (NAEd) and Spencer Dissertation Fellowships.
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.
It’s no simple feat to find a better way to detect neurodegenerative diseases like ALS and Alzheimer’s, Lauren Fields knows. But with support from a 2026 Schmidt Science Fellowship, Fields will build on the research she conducted and skills she learned as a PhD student at UW–Madison to look for a way to tell when patients have early signs of ALS and other diseases.
Pan researches efficient computer architecture, including sustainable computing, in the lab of Joshua San Miguel, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. Some of her recent projects include working on improving data compression to create more efficient memory and storage without sacrificing performance.
PhD students LaShanda Harbin and Marino Miranda Noriega have received dissertation fellowships from the National Academy of Education and Spencer Foundation.
Gabriela C. Yepes-Rossel has received a Dissertation Innovation Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). Her scholarship focuses on women theater and dance performers from the Southern Peruvian Andes who infuse their cultural traditions with new values and purposes to challenge normalized practices of intersectional inequity and violence.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) selected 19 graduate and 8 undergraduate UW–Madison students as 2025 recipients of its prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP).
UW–Madison PhD graduate Hongyan (May) Mei has been awarded a 2025 Schmidt Science Fellowship, a highly competitive and prestigious national program that supports “brilliant minds” who pursue innovative, interdisciplinary science.
Design Studies PhD candidate Maeve Hogan’s dissertation research at UW–Madison has been driven by unique objects in the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection at the School of Human Ecology. These works have the potential to help revise and broaden the story of craft made and collected in America, Hogan said. However, many of the items in the collection that Hogan studies lack essential documentation, making that task a difficult one.
UW–Madison PhD student Emma Hammond and professor Catherine Marler have received the prestigious Gilliam Fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).
HHMI’s Gilliam Fellowships recognize outstanding research alongside a commitment to advancing equity and inclusion in science.