PhD Student Alex Gurvich Awarded Two Prestigious Fellowships
CIERA’s Alex Gurvich, a second-year astronomy graduate student advised by Professor Claude-André Faucher-Giguère, recently accepted two important fellowships within the same week. Part of the Galaxy Formation Group at Northwestern, Alex explores “the invisible universe” (the history and features of galaxies, stars, and supernovae) using computer simulations.
Alex will receive three years of funding as one of 2,000 awardees of the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Chosen from over 13,000 applicants, the 2,000 individuals meet the NSF’s vision for both intellectual merit and “broader impacts,” meaning the potential value of their work to society. Alex explains that the heavy emphasis on broader impacts is a very gratifying part of the award for him. His outreach work at CIERA and the Adler Planetarium, sharing astronomy with the public through a variety of events and initiatives, is a fundamental part of his career.
Alex will also receive a one-year graduate fellowship from Blue Waters National Center for Supercomputing Applications, which includes a significant allocation of time to use the powerful supercomputer hosted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Through their program, Blue Waters creates small cohorts of students each year from different disciplines. The students meet regularly via teleconference, work closely with the staff who manage the supercomputer, and present their work at symposia.
Categories: STEM