Carnegie Mellon University
September 14, 2015

Presidential Fellowships & Scholarships

By Shilo Rea

Presidential Fellowships & Scholarships

Carnegie Mellon University President Subra Suresh launched the Presidential Fellowship and Scholarship Program in 2014 to provide critical financial support to outstanding undergraduate and graduate students across the university’s seven colleges and schools. The funds go to support a student’s academic tuition and fees at CMU.

Endowed funds and commitments of more than $150 million will support this and future classes of Presidential Fellows and Scholars.

The first class of Presidential Fellows and Scholars has been named for the 2015-16 academic year, including 33 awarded to undergraduate and graduate students in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.


Undergraduate Students

The following first-year students have been awarded Presidential Scholarships and were selected as part of the CMU admission process.

Emily Chen
Paul Mellon Memorial Presidential Scholarship

Harrin Choi
Tobias Kotzin and Bessie Finkelhor Kotzin Presidential Scholarship

Daniel Deluca
Paul Mellon Memorial Presidential Scholarship

Makenzie Donaldson
Paul Mellon Memorial Presidential Scholarship

Emma Flickinger
Tobias Kotzin and Bessie Finkelhor Kotzin Presidential Scholarship

Pavan Gollapalli
Elmer C. Juhnke, E 1931, Memorial Endowed Presidential Scholarship

Malaika Handa
John D. Henry Memorial Endowed Presidential Scholarship

Julie Heming
Sarabelle Tiffany Sable Kresser Endowed Presidential Scholarship

Renhao Hu
Sarabelle Tiffany Sable Kresser Endowed Presidential Scholarship

Xiao Huang
Sarabelle Tiffany Sable Kresser Endowed Presidential Scholarship

Joanne Lee
Paul Mellon Memorial Presidential Scholarship

Renee Madrigal
Frederick D. Delve, E 1960, Endowed Presidential Scholarship

Mary Safy
Wayne M. and Nancy M. Yeknik Presidential Scholarship

John Verser
Paul Mellon Memorial Presidential Scholarship

Jordan Wong
Paul Mellon Memorial Presidential Scholarship

Binru Zhang
Paul Mellon Memorial Presidential Scholarship

Shirley Zhou
Sidney M. and Sylvia B. Feldman Presidential Scholarship

Graduate Students

The selection process for Presidential Fellows varies by fellowship. Typically, current or prospective students are nominated for Presidential Fellowships by the deans of their respective colleges and final selection is made through a process overseen by the provost.

Vencislav Borislavov Popov
Richard King Mellon Foundation Presidential Fellowship in the Life Sciences
Psychology Department

“I am interested in how the medial temporal lobe (MTL) encodes the spatio-temporal context necessary to bind events and objects into a coherent story, and how the prefrontal cortex (PFC) integrates task demands and contextual cues supplied from the MTL to selectively retrieve information from neocortical areas. Further, how do these and other structures interact to support not only the learning of individual episodes, but the generalization of information into context-independent semantic knowledge?”

Sandrine Girard
Presidential Fellowship in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Psychology Department
The effects of language and cognition on each other, bilingualism, language acquisition

Nikolos Gurney
Presidential Fellowship in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Social and Decision Sciences Department
Ethics and Decision Making

Jay Hennig
Richard King Mellon Foundation Presidential Fellowship in the Life Sciences
Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
Effects of attention on sensorimotor interactions

Natalie Klein
William S. Dietrich II Presidential Ph.D. Fellowship
Statistics Department
Statistical methods for magnetoencephalography (MEG) neuroimaging in the context of developmental psychology

Rob Lewis
William S. Dietrich II Presidential Ph.D. Fellowship
Philosophy and Mathematical Sciences Department
“My research is primarily in mathematical logic, focusing on the fields of automated mathematical reasoning and interactive theorem proving. I am also interested in the philosophical and psychological details of mathematical reasoning, and the light that automated reasoning can shed on these questions.”

Yana Litovsky
Presidential Fellowship in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Social and Decision Sciences Department
Prosocial implications of financial behavior

Katilyn Mascatelli
William S. Dietrich II Presidential Ph.D. Fellowship
Psychology Department
“I am interested in social and health implications of gender, particularly as it pertains to stereotyping and stigma.”

Eric Silver
Presidential Fellowship in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Social and Decision Sciences Department
Entrepreneurial innovation

Joachim Talloen
Presidential Fellowship in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Social and Decision Sciences Department
Game theory and behavioral economics

Akash Umakantha
Richard King Mellon Foundation Presidential Fellowship in the Life Sciences
Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
Applying machine learning to large scale neural data

Timothy Whalen
Richard King Mellon Foundation Presidential Fellowship in the Life Sciences
Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
In vivo recording and computational modeling of the basal ganglia in Parkinson's Disease

Ryan Williamson
Richard King Mellon Foundation Presidential Fellowship in the Life Sciences
Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
High dimensional neural activity in the visual system

Ying Yang
Henry L. Hillman Presidential Fellowship
Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
Statistical models of neuroimaging, high-level vision

Haomin Zhang
Presidential Fellowship in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Modern Languages Department
Bilingualism and biliteracy, morphosyntax, linguistic variation and psycholinguistics

Qiong Zhang
Richard King Mellon Foundation Presidential Fellowship in the Life Sciences
Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
Understanding the processing stages of human thought from EEG data during problem solving and memory retrieval