Chris Esposito, 2014 McCune awardee, has been granted the Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.
He comments that the fellowship has agreeable perks, including higher pay and relief from teaching requirements. So Chris will be able to research full-time at his current institution, University of California-Los Angeles, once he finishes his course load. The fellowship includes 3 years of full support plus tuition remission, and an additional 2 years of ‘fellowship,’ during which he can apply for GRF-only travel grants, international research partnership grants, and other opportunities.
This year, NSF received over 16,000 applications for the 2015 competition, and made 2,000 fellowship award offers. (ref.)