This year, 11 first- and second-year Ph.D. students in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University are recipients of the prestigious National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP), the highest total of any school in the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech.
Since its inception in 1952, the NSF GRFP has been an instrumental mechanism to support and recruit masters- and doctoral-level students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, including STEM education. This program is the longest continuous investment in STEM education by the NSF, even predating its own research grant program.
Recipients of the NSF fellowship are provided three years of support over a five-year period, including a $37,000 annual stipend and $16,000 each year for graduate education-related expenses, such as tuition and fees.
Each year, the NSF GRFP receives approximately 14,000 applications. This year, 2,597 applicants were awarded the fellowship, while another 1,438 applicants were deemed honorable mentions, a distinction recognizing applicants whose proposals were highly competitive despite not receiving the fellowship.
Of the 11 students who were awarded NSF GRFP awards, four students—Bertila Bruka, Aniya Hartzler, Sophia Klessel, and Blake Miller—are rising second-year students who received the fellowship after applying during the first year of their Ph.D. program. The remaining seven students—Remy Bell, Annika Deans, Claire Hays, Sara Kapasi, Ghosh Mrigayu, Thomas Neuman, and Sierra Triozzi—will begin their first year in Coulter BME with their fellowship.
The 11 awards received by this year’s BME recipients represent a wide breadth of research interests across biomedical engineering, including neuroimaging, vascular mechanobiology, biomaterials, medical robotics, and cancer immunotherapy. Despite this breadth of research, each student shared a common motivation for not only pursuing graduate-level research but also applying for this fellowship: to address complex medical and clinical challenges while pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery through engineering.
For Bertila Bruka, a first-year Ph.D. student in the Keilholz Lab, the fellowship builds upon research she conducted at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) during her senior year at Stevens Institute of Technology, where she used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study structural brain development in macaques before joining the Keilholz lab at Emory University.
Bruka’s NSF GRFP proposal focused on addressing one of the most pressing questions in neuroscience: why women are significantly more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease (AD) than men. Using rat models of AD and integrating machine learning (ML) models to predict disease progression, Bruka ultimately hopes to elucidate how estrogen influences AD development.
For Bruka, the fellowship represented more than the financial support it provides.
“I wanted to be a part of the [NSF GRFP] cohort and have the recognition behind the name of having the NSF GRFP.”
Having previously worked alongside an NSF GRFP awardee during her undergraduate research, the award represented both validation of her intellectual merits and research experience as well as the opportunity to join a community of extraordinary young scientists endeavoring to make a positive impact on society. Reflecting on the application process, Bruka encourages future applicants to approach the fellowship application process with confidence.
“If you take yourself seriously, [the NSF GRFP panel reviewers] will take you seriously,” she said. “Put in the work and make an effort to build a strong application.”
Much like Bruka, Sophia Klessel, a rising second-year Ph.D. student in the Vlahos Lab, entered her Ph.D. program with extensive research experience. Before entering the GT/Emory Ph.D. program in Fall 2025, Klessel earned her bachelor’s degree in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania, where she conducted research on developing biomaterials for cartilage repair applications and spent a summer conducting research in Professor Andrés García’s lab through Georgia Tech’s Summer Undergraduate Research in Engineering (SURE) program.
Now, Klessel’s research focuses on using synthetic biology methodologies to monitor and mitigate cell stress. Her fellowship application centered on developing non-destructive biosensors capable of tracking endoplasmic reticulum stress over time, with the aim to improve islet cell transplantation in Type 1 diabetes applications.
Although she originally planned to apply later in graduate school, recent changes to the NSF GRFP eligibility requirements prompted her to submit her fellowship application during the first year of her Ph.D. program.
Klessel noted that one of the biggest challenges when preparing her application was ensuring that her personal statement, broader impacts, and research plan all told a single, cohesive story.
“Don’t just list your accomplishments,” she advised future students when preparing their applications. “Really tell a story and communicate in your application why you did the things you did.”
She also emphasized the importance of mentorship throughout her application preparation.
“It was nice to have [a mentor] to talk to about the proposal and who was willing to look over every single draft of the application,” she highlighted.
For Thomas Neuman, the fellowship marks a major inflection point in a research journey that began during his sophomore year at Georgia Tech. Initially studying AD pathology under the supervision of professors Ahmet Coskun and Levi Wood, Neuman later joined Gabe Kwong’s lab, where he now uses synthetic biology approaches to develop cell therapies designed to improve treatment options for solid tumors, particularly head and neck cancers.
His NSF GRFP proposal built directly on this work, but arriving at the final idea required significant refinement.
“The biggest challenge for me was thinking of a new idea,” Neuman stated. Conversations with other graduate students in the lab pushed him beyond simply repurposing or improving existing technologies and instead toward developing something genuinely novel.
His advice to future applicants is to think boldly.
“You’re asking the government to essentially give you a couple hundred thousand dollars,” he explained. “Think big. Come up with something really novel that makes people believe it can change the world.”
Like Klessel, he also encourages students to seek honest feedback early and often, stating that conversations with mentors and lab colleagues strengthened both his scientific vision as well as the proposal itself.
For Annika Deans, the fellowship marked an exciting milestone at the start of her doctoral career. After earning her degree in biomedical engineering at the University of Rochester, where she conducted research involving hydrogels, platelet biology, and microfluidics, she came to Georgia Tech with an interest in developing innovative diagnostic technologies under the mentorship of Professor Wilbur Lam
Her NSF GRFP proposal focused on developing a blood-based diagnostic tool capable of detecting tumor-derived and fetal cell-free DNA circulating the bloodstream. By analyzing DNA signatures from a simple blood sample, the proposed technology could support earlier tumor detection as well as noninvasive prenatal screening for fetal genetic disorders. This project reflected her interest in translating fundamental engineering principles into diagnostic tools with meaningful clinical impact.
Beyond the science itself, Deans saw the NSF GRFP as an opportunity to demonstrate her readiness to pursue independent, Ph.D.-level research.
“I wanted to show that I was ready for graduate school and capable of developing an independent research project,” she stated.
For Deans, one of the most challenging parts of writing the proposal was demonstrating that the project was not only technically strong but also meaningful beyond the lab.
“The application is not just the science,” she emphasized. “It’s about clearly connecting the intellectual merit of the work with the broader impacts.”
For her proposal, that meant explaining how a blood-based diagnostic platform for detecting fetal- and tumor-derived DNA could ultimately contribute to earlier disease detection, more accessible prenatal screening, and technologies with clear relevance to human health.
Her advice echoes a theme shared by many successful applications: strong proposals reveal not only the promise of the research ideas but also the potential of the applicant as an emerging scientist.
“Many people focus mostly on their proposal idea,” she said,” but reviewers are also evaluating your potential as a researcher.”
Receiving the fellowship on her first attempt made the experience especially rewarding. “It was really exciting to get it the first time I applied,” she highlighted. “I was over the moon.”
For these 11 students, the fellowship is more than a prestigious award—it is an investment in their potential as future scientists and leaders. As they pursue bold ideas across biomedical engineering, their achievements not only reflect the strength of the department’s research but also underscore its commitment to training the next generation of scientists and engineers tackling some of society’s most pressing healthcare challenges.
