UC Riverside has received eight Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need grants from the U.S. Department of Education. The grants total $304,380 a year for three years—$7.3 million in all— and will support outstanding graduate students with financial need pursuing studies in an area of national need.
“These awards help UCR attract, retain, and support exceptionally talented students with financial constraints that might make obtaining a graduate degree difficult,” said graduate division dean Shaun Bowler. “They are a great support for our students. And these awards are yet another sign of the high regard in which our academic programs are held.”
For the current fiscal year, the federal government has identified as areas of national need information security and artificial intelligence, all fields of engineering, biology, biochemistry and biophysics, botany, cell and molecular biology, microbiology, zoology, and most fields within psychology.
UC Riverside’s eight grants span the Bourns College of Engineering and the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences and constitute 11% of the grants awarded nationally. Faculty who have received funding to offer stipends and cover tuition for graduate students in their labs are:
- Khaleel Abdul-Razak, Neuroscience
- Emma Aronson, Microbiology & Plant Pathology
- Elaine Haberer, Materials Science and Engineering
- Bhargav Rallabandi, Mechanical Engineering
- Rick Redak, Entomology
- Shaolei Ren, Electrical and Computer Engineering
- David Reznick, Evolutionary and Organismal Biology
- Jingsong Zhang, Biochemistry