Recent grads win 2016 NSF Fellowships & Honorable Mentions

Ben Augenbraun '15
Ben Augenbraun ’15
Julia Cline '15
Julia Cline ’15
Ilya Amburg '14
Ilya Amburg ’14
Joe Iafrate '14
Joe Iafrate ’14
Cole Meisenhelder '15
Cole Meisenhelder ’15
Ashwin Narayan '16
Ashwin Narayan ’16

The National Science Foundation awarded 2016 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships to two physics alumni, Benjamin Augenbraun ’15 and Julia Cline ’15.

Ben is pursuing graduate study in physics at Harvard University.  At Williams he conducted research in Prof. Tiku Majumder’s lab, producing an honors thesis that won the American Physical Society LeRoy Apker Award for research by an undergraduate.

Julia is a graduate student in physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder and is affiliated with JILA.  As an undergraduate at Williams she worked with Prof. Ward Lopes and wrote an honors thesis titled “The Evolution of Order in Thin Film Diblock Copolymer Systems.”

Physics alumni Ilya Amburg ’14, Joseph Iafrate ’14, and Cole Meisenhelder ’15, and current senior Ashwin Narayan ’16 all received honorable mentions. Ilya is a graduate student in applied mathematics at Cornell University, Joe is a graduate student in applied physics at the University of Michigan, and Cole is a graduate student in physics at Harvard University.  Ashwin plans to enroll as a graduate student in applied mathematics at M.I.T. in the fall

Including all majors, a total of 14 Williams seniors and recent graduates won NSF fellowships this year and 13 more received honorable mentions.  Over the past 10 years 76 Williams graduates have won NSF fellowships, an exceptionally large number for a college our size.  The NSF is a highly competitive national fellowship that covers the cost of three years of graduate study at virtually any university in the United States.