College and Departmental Fellowships

McWilliams Fellowship in the Mellon College of Science will support two students per year in the Mellon College of Science who are conducting leading-edge research in selected fields, which are currently nanotechnology, biophysics and cosmology.

With gratitude for a very generous bequest from alumna Stephanie Kwolek (S‘46), Carnegie Mellon University has established the Kwolek Fellowship in Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University.

The maximum amount of the fellowship is $50,000. Since fellowships only provide partial funding, departments or faculty advisors need to cover the portion of tuition, stipend and fees not covered by the fellowship. The fellowship funding can be used to support a student’s academic expenses, such as tuition, fees, and stipend. It does not provide supplemental stipend or travel funds.

An ad hoc committee from the department will select the fellowship winner.

Eligibility

Ph.D. students who have reached ABD status and are one or more years from graduation are eligible for nomination. The nominees must have successfully completed all of the requirements expected at that stage in their degree program.

Nomination Package

Nominations must include:

• The student’s name, email, advisor(s), year of entry into the Ph.D. program, estimated graduation date,
• The nominee's statement of her research accomplishments, research goals for the next 1–2 years, and how this fellowship would specifically impact her research (2–3 pages),
• The nominee's up-to-date curriculum vita,
• A short letter of support from the student’s research advisor describing the student's accomplishments and commenting on the impact of those contributions at the current stage of the student’s research.

Nominees and letter writers are encouraged to include information that will make the candidate's credentials clear for review at college and university levels.

Selection criteria

For current students, priority will be given to students who are in their third to fifth year of graduate study at CMU and have shown significant advances in their research. Criteria such as creativity and initiative, contributions to collaborative efforts, and record of publications and presentations will be considered.

Submission

The complete nominations should be submitted electronically as a single pdf for each student nominated to the department. Applications are typically due at the end of the Spring semester. The exact deadline will be communicated by the department each year. The department head may form a small ad hoc committee to rank the nominees.

Previous Recipients

• 2025 Avleen Chawla
• 2024 Nicole Auvil
• 2023 Kriti Kapil
• 2022 Manami Kawakami
• 2021 Karoline Eckert
• 2021 Xiangsha Du
• 2020 Julia Cuthbert
• 2019 Yi Wang
• 2019 Zoe Wright
• 2018 Rui Yuan
• 2017 Andria Fortney
• 2016 Chia-Hua Tsai

Thanks to a generous endowed gift, the Department of Chemistry also offers the John & Nancy Harrison Legacy Graduate Fellowship in Chemistry and Biochemistry. The Harrison Legacy Fellowship is awarded to a dedicated graduate student based on research accomplishments and promise. The fellowship provides $3,000/year as a supplement to the students' stipend with up to $1,000/year of the fellowship funds to be used for the student's travel to conferences. Students must have all-but-dissertation (ABD) status to be eligible.

All ABD students are eligible to apply. We will identify 1-2 students to receive the fellowship beginning in September and continuing for up to one year, or until they graduate, whichever comes first. $3,000/year will supplement the student’s stipend, and a total of $1,000 can be used for the student’s travel to conferences.

Selection Criteria

The process for selecting a student will be based on supporting a dedicated graduate student who is already demonstrating promise with research accomplishments and other indications of leadership potential.

Application Materials

Students who wish to be considered must submit 6 copies of the following:

• A self-nomination letter summarizing his/her research accomplishments (2-3 pages, 12 pt font and 1.5 line spacing),
• Curriculum vita complete with all presentations given and manuscripts submitted,
• Unofficial academic record (which you can print in Student Information Online), and up to two reprints or preprints, or
• Up to two sample unpublished papers (e.g. progress report, original proposal, and/or papers in preparation).

The student should also arrange for:

• One letter of support from a faculty member or other appropriate Ph.D. other than his/her research advisor(s) who knows his/her work (e.g. an advisory committee member, collaborator, visiting researcher or postdoctoral fellow in the group).

Applications should be submitted as a single PDF file to the department. Fellowship deadlines and submission information will be communicated by email to the department. The final decisions will be made by a committee appointed by the department head.

Previous Recipients

• Zhongyu Liu
• Michael Martinez
• Eric Lopato
• Stephen DiLuzio
• Saborni Biswas
• Sajjad Dadashi Silab
• Jeff Pyun
• Tomislav Pintauer
• Bhaskar Datta
• Nicolay Tsarevsky
• Arani Chanda
• Wade Braunecker
• Hongchen Dong
• Greg Drodz
• Wenwen Li
• Saadyah Averick
• Hongkun He
• Chenjie Zeng
• Yunyan Qiu
• Genoa Warner
• Tom Ribelli

An endowed fund for supporting conference travel for Chemistry graduate students in physical chemistry or chemical physics has been created in honor of Edwin N. Lassettre. The Edwin N. Lassettre Graduate Travel Award honors a former Carnegie Mellon University faculty member who was internationally known for pioneering work in electron-impact spectroscopy. Please see Professor Lassettre's 1990 obituary in Physics Today for more about his exemplary career in physical chemistry.

Eligibility

Due to the donor's preferences, graduate students in chemical physics or physical chemistry in the Department of Chemistry will be eligible for the award.

As part of applying for the award, students also need to show that they have a poster or presentation accepted at a key conference in their field.

Award

This award will provide $1,000 per student as a supplemental source of support, and applicants are expected to seek funds from their advisor and/or professional associations.

Deadlines

Requests for applications are typically sent at the beginning of each semester. Exact dates will be communicated by the department via email.

Selection Criteria

Among the criteria in selecting awardees are:

• Likely impact of the presentation on the student’s career (e.g. significance of the work to be presented, significance of the conference),
• Additional impact of attending the meeting (e.g. significant job search opportunities),
• Relevance of the work to be presented to chemical physics or physical chemistry, and
• Evidence that the student will be able to obtain the balance of funds needed to travel to the meeting.

Application Materials

• Brief letter of intent describing why presenting at this conference is important to your career. Be specific about the nature of the conference in relation to your career goals and indicate how the poster or paper to be presented helps with those goals. Please describe how you will take advantage of specific opportunities presented at the conference. Describe any other sources of support that you have requested and the status of those requests (including a request to a professional association or your advisor).
• Copy of abstract submitted.
• Copy of documentation that establishes that the presentation or poster has been accepted at the conference.
• Current curriculum vita. Please be sure to include full information for any previous poster or paper presentations (authors, titles, dates, etc.) as well as full information about any publications (authors, titles, dates, etc.).
• Recommendation letter from the research advisor (or one joint letter from co-advisors) which addresses all of the following:
  • the quality and prestige of the conference,
  • the quality and importance of the applicant's work to be presented,
  • the significance of attending the conference to the student's career, and
  • whether he/she agrees to cover the balance of the conference costs if the student receives this departmental award.

Review of applications

Applications will be reviewed by an ad hoc committee appointed by the department head. Committee members whose students are applying for the award will not review applications and may be replaced by another faculty member to seek expertise across the research areas represented by the applicants.

Previous Recipients

• 2025 - Dhruv Sharma
• 2025 - Nicole Auvil
• 2025 - Savannah Talledo
• 2025 - Ben Koby
• 2024 - Evan Luo
• 2024 - Shuhao Zhang
• 2024 - Abhrojyoti Mazumder
• 2024 - Daniel Bonomo
• 2023 - Leticia Maria Pequeno Madureira
• 2023 - Yiwen Wang
• 2023 - Riley Weatherholt
• 2023 - Evgeny "Eugene" Gutkin
• 2022 - Bailey Bowers
• 2022 - Stephen DiLuzio
• 2022 - Saeed Moayedpour
• 2019 - Leif Jahn
• 2018 - Yogesh Somasundar
• 2017 - Qi Li
• 2017 - Ruixi Fan
• 2016 - Adam Ahern
• 2016 - Logan Plath
• 2015 - Husain Kagalwala
• 2015 - Matharishwan Naganbabu
• 2014 - Chenjie Zeng
• 2013 - Santosh Kumar