IRVINE : 21 UCI Students Win Fellowships

Twenty-one top UC Irvine graduate students were honored this week as recipients of chancellor’s fellowships for this academic year.

At Monday’s convocation and reception marking the fifth year of the fellowship program, UCI Chancellor Jack W. Peltason honored the recipients as well as 25 other graduate students who have received fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, the president of the University of California, the National Science Foundation and others.

Each chancellor’s fellow will receive a $14,000 stipend to cover expenses for the first year of studies, as well as fees and non-resident tuition, where applicable, said university spokeswoman Susan Menning. In addition, each is guaranteed a research or teaching assistant position in his or her academic area for another three years, along with supplemental funds.

The campus fellowship program was created to help recruit top graduate students from around the world. This year, recipients include graduates from Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, Bryn Mawr, Duke University, and Tsing Hua University and the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in the People’s Republic of China. One chancellor’s fellow in UCI’s English department, Clara Denison McLean, who received her bachelor’s in English from UC Berkeley, is one of four UCI graduate students who received Mellon fellowships this year.

Other chancellor’s fellows are: Smita Bakshi of New Delhi, India; Joseph Jay Braunwarth of Hermosa Beach; Julian Berkeley Carter of San Francisco; Stephen Leycester Gwaltney II of Seymour, Ind.; Louisa Gardner Haefele of Germantown, Tenn.; Carl Frederick Hirschman of Baltimore, Md.; Kathleen M. Keating of Somerville, Mass.; Jennifer Levy of Ridgewood, N.J.; Nancy Elizabeth Mangum of Laguna Hills; Jonathan Kent Martin of Fullerton; Andrew Martin Naylor of Costa Mesa; Theresa A. Powers of Mechanicsburg, Pa.; James Steven Reid of Berkeley; David Charles Rice of Englewood, Colo.; Andrew Seth Roth of Los Angeles; Alan Schack of Pompano Beach, Fla.; Ann Muir Thomas of San Diego; Martin Charles Young of Westminster; Yang Yu of Shanghai, and Weidong Zhang of Beijing.