A Queens resident and Hunter College student was recently awarded with the prestigious National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF-GRFP).
Ariane Marchese, 21, of Bayside, is furthering her education as a graduate student at Columbia University this fall studying mechanical engineering.
Prior to attending Hunter’s Macaulay Honors College Program, Marchese graduated in 2016 from Townsend Harris High School in Flushing.
“I wanted to pursue mechanical engineering because I really enjoyed physics as well as material science. I found that mechanical engineering was the marriage between my two interests,” said Marchese, a senior physics major in Hunter’s Macaulay Honors College Program. “It was nice to be awarded a grant to use for further research to go to graduate school.”
The NSF-GRFP program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students pursuing research-based masters and doctoral degrees in National Science Foundation-supported disciplines within science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
NSF Fellows receive a three-year annual stipend of $34,000 along with a $12,000 allowance for tuition and fees paid directly to the accredited U.S. institution they choose to attend for their graduate education. Fellows are offered opportunities for international research and professional development, and the freedom to conduct their own research.
As an undergraduate student at Hunter, Marchese worked with Prof. Steve Greenbaum, studying the unprecedented threat posed to the earth’s atmosphere by the accelerating growth of greenhouse gases. Marchese’s research seeks to ameliorate rising atmospheric CO2 levels through the development of materials capable of absorbing or converting atmospheric CO2.
She has also worked on other projects during her eight-week 2019 summer research internship program at The Materials Research Laboratory through the NSF REU program, which brings hundreds of the best science and engineering undergraduates in the country to MIT for graduate-level materials research.
“I interned with Dr. Caroline Ross and her graduate student, Takian Fakhrul. I used a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) and a Faraday detector to observe the magnetic properties of rare-earth garnet films as potential magneto-optical materials for laser systems,” said Marchese, who also interned at the Goddard Space Flight Center during the summer of her freshman year in college.
Jennifer Raab, president of Hunter College, congratulated Marchese on her accomplishment.
“We are incredibly proud of our students for their hard work and dedication to their studies. Students like Ariane are truly extraordinary and inspire our faculty and staff in addition to their fellow peers,” Raab said. “Each year, Hunter College students receive prestigious awards and fellowships, and this year we are pleased to announce that Ariane is among those honored for their academic achievements. We look forward to continuing to connect our extraordinary young scholars with the opportunities they deserve.”
