Five Current Cal-Bridge Scholars Awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Published: April 26, 2023
Oldest Graduate Fellowship Directly Supporting STEM Graduate Students; Past Winners Include Numerous Nobel Prize Winners and Other Scientific Leaders
Cal-Bridge is pleased to announce that five of its current scholars have been recognized by the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). Each student will receive $123,000 in tuition payments and fees over three years.
GRFP is the country’s oldest fellowship program that directly supports graduate students in various STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields. Since 1952, 60,000 students have been awarded Fellowships, from a pool of more than 500,000. Currently, 42 Fellows have gone on to become Nobel laureates, and more than 450 have become members of the National Academy of Sciences. Over the last nine years, 19 Cal-Bridge Scholars have been named as Fellows.
This year’s Cal-Bridge winners include four undergraduates and one graduate student:
- Anna Gagnebin, Sacramento State
- Jeisson Pulido, California State University – Dominguez Hills
- Ky Putnam, San Diego State
- Pedro Jesus Quiñonez, Sonoma State
- Jiahao Jiang, BS, San José State, PhD student, UC-Irvine
The four undergraduate Cal-Bridge awards from the CSU system represent almost 1 in 5 of the total of 21 undergraduate awards in physics in astronomy in the entire state of California, including awards from such institutions as Stanford, Caltech, and the entire University of California system.
Cal-Bridge, a one-of-a-kind higher education program, provides a pathway for students who are women and people of color in California Community Colleges and the California State University (CSU) system to pursue advanced PhD degrees through the University of California (UC) system and join the California science and technology workforce, including as public university faculty. Launched in 2014, the program supports scholars from their CSU undergraduate studies through their UC PhD studies by providing funding for tuition and research projects, as well as guidance from mentors.
“This is a remarkable achievement for these students and other Cal-Bridge members who received this recognition in past years,” said Alexander Rudolph, professor of physics and astronomy at Cal Poly Pomona, and a founder and the Executive Director of the expanding program. “Their professional potential is limitless.”
About Cal-Bridge: The Cal-Bridge program has the mission to create a comprehensive, end-to-end pathway for undergraduates from the diverse student population of the CSU system through graduate school to a PhD, postdoctoral fellowship, and ultimately membership in the professoriate and science and technology workforce. Students in the program are referred to as Cal-Bridge scholars.
The program is a partnership between 9 University of California (UC), all 23 California State University (CSU), and the 116 community college campuses in California, thus fulfilling the promise of cross-segmental cooperation envisioned in the California Master Plan for Higher Education. Scholars are recruited from CSU and community college campuses across the state, with the help of local faculty and/or staff liaisons at each campus. Community college students transfer to a participating CSU to join the program.
MEDIA CONTACTS
Alexander L. Rudolph, PhD
Executive Director, Cal-Bridge
Adjunct Professor, Physics and Astronomy
School Of Physical Sciences, UC Irvine
execdir@calbridge.org
