Six Fords Receive NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

Six Fords—two current students and four recent alums—have received National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships, the foundation announced earlier this month. The program is the nation’s oldest fellowship supporting graduate students in numerous STEM and social science fields, providing up to three years of financial support for promising students pursuing advanced degrees in a wide range of disciplines. 

The selected Fords’ research areas span marine biology to theoretical chemistry, but they are all rooted in the faculty mentorship, rigorous academics, and access to hands-on research experiences that frame the educational experience at Haverford. This is the second-highest number of Fords to receive NSF Graduate Research fellowships in a single year in the past decade, and an additional 18 Fords received honorable mentions this year.

Anagha Aneesh '24
Last year, Aneesh, a double major in physics and chemistry and a climate change activist, was honored with both a Fulbright Scholarship and an NSF fellowship. She chose to pursue the Fulbright opportunity and spent the last year in Jena, Germany, collaborating with Kevin Jablonka at the Helmholtz Institute for Polymers in Energy Applications at the University of Jena. 

After arriving at Haverford, Aneesh learned that climate activism does not always require marching in the street or engaging in political lobbying. Science, she says, can be a critical component of the fight. “I remember a pivotal moment in my second-year chemistry lab course when my professor said, ‘We have to ask ourselves constantly: Is the chemistry we’re doing helping or hurting the environment? If it’s not helping, what can we do to change that?’” Aneesh recalls.

In the fall, Aneesh will pursue her Ph.D. in chemistry at Stanford University, where her research will focus on building artificial intelligence tools to accelerate chemical space exploration, specifically for small molecule discovery.

Emma Castiblanco '21
Castiblanco will pursue her Ph.D. in geography at the University of Utah, where her research will explore how municipal policies influence the integration of street trees into public transit corridors. “While the environmental and health benefits of urban trees are well documented,” she says, “their role in encouraging sustainable commuting—particularly public bus use—remains underexplored.” 

At Haverford, Castiblanco conducted research on plant genetics in Professor David Higgins’s lab and on marine microbial ecology in Professor Kristen Whalen’s lab. While Castiblanco’s research interests have shifted away from biology, she says she remains “immensely grateful for the research foundation they both provided me.” A summer REU at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies proved formative, cementing her interest in environmental research. Environmental anthropology and urban sustainability courses also played key roles in shaping her current path. 

“Research is a byproduct of human curiosity,” she says. “It’s also often a byproduct of wanting to do good.”

Natalie Goeler-Slough '24
At the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Goeler-Slough will pursue her Ph.D. in marine biology while focusing her research on coral reef ecology and resilience. Her NSF proposal explores how coral-associated microbial communities respond to environmental stress, with the goal of using microbial indicators to track reef health and develop community-based monitoring systems. “The microbial world is an exciting source of potential in coral restoration, and I’m excited to work at the intersection of experimental biology, ecology, and applied conservation,” she says. 

At Haverford, Goeler-Slough conducted her senior thesis under the mentorship of Professor Kristen Whalen, worked as a biophysics research assistant in Professor Suzanne Amador Kane’s lab, and researched reef ecology at the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology. 

“Together, these experiences helped me identify the kinds of interdisciplinary, ecology-driven research questions I want to investigate,” she says. 

Gabe Jones-Thomson '25
Gabe Jones-Thomson, who received a Goldwater Scholarship last year, will begin a Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, after graduating from Haverford this year. In California, he plans to explore “stimulus-driven synthetic methods relevant to the development of new drugs, agrochemicals, and materials.” His NSF proposal focuses on using light to excite a catalyst, which drives a chemical reaction that can forge pharmaceutically valuable bonds, a field known as photoredox catalysis. 

While at Haverford, he worked in Professor Alexander Norquist’s lab to discover new perovskites, materials with promising applications for the next generation of solar cells, and contributed to a chemistry education project that introduces undergraduates to concepts of automation and data science. He also conducted research with Visiting Professor Grant Spoors and Professor Bill Malachowski at Bryn Mawr College. 

“Haverford has been a great place for preparing me for a career in research,” he says. “Early exposure to research in and outside of coursework—and fantastic research funding opportunities for students—made a big difference for me.”

Neal Kelso '20
Since graduating from Haverford, Kelso has been working on the Plants and People of Vanuatu project, a multidisciplinary effort that includes researchers from Swarthmore College, the New York Botanical Garden, and Vanuatu’s Department of Forests and local communities. Now Kelso is headed to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where he will seek his Ph.D.

His NSF proposal builds on efforts to document plant diversity and support local ecological knowledge. “I narrowed in on the topic of ‘ecological calendars’ as my main research interest,” he says. These traditional systems, widespread across the Pacific but understudied, use environmental cues like plant flowering and animal migration to guide everything from agriculture to disaster preparation. But, Kelso says, “many of the people I work with in Vanuatu say that knowledge of ecological calendars is fading.”

At Haverford, Kelso collaborated with Professors K. David Harrison and Brook Lillehaugen on research that explored the links between endangered languages, biodiversity, and ethnobotany. Kelso now grounds his research in the belief that “every culture, situated in a unique environment, has a unique way of knowing the world, encoded through their language.”

Samuel Ross '25
When he heads to Harvard University to begin his Ph.D. program this fall, Ross will be focused on international finance and macroeconomics. His NSF proposal explores “how financial intermediaries (like banks and hedge funds) influence exchange rates when central banks are not credible.”  It’s a topic he says he found himself drawn to after studying the impact of hedge funds on the U.S. dollar and Japanese yen exchange rate after uncertainty surrounding the Bank of Japan’s ability to control inflation last summer. He says he hopes his research will inform policy that improves financial stability and economic competitiveness in the U.S. and abroad. 

At Haverford, Ross spent a summer researching price controls with Professor Carola Binder, an experience he says sparked an interest in macroeconomics and inspired him to pursue a Ph.D. He also credits Professor Giri Parameswaran’s courses with inspiring “a love for using mathematics to elegantly illustrate economic mechanisms and derive novel insights.”

Receiving honorable mentions this year are:
Ali Al-Tamimi '22; Juno Bartsch '24; Dalia Bercow '23; Zachary Bressman '21; Ashley Chun '23; Jack Crump '23; Aldan Dye '23; Aidan Gleich '21; Rowan Goudy '23; Kyra Jackson '25; Karan Makkar '22; Penelope Northing '22; Levi Raskin '24; Logan Smith '23; Maisie Smith '23;  Elizabeth Szanton '22; Alice Youle '21; Rodrigo Zuniga '20.

Read more about Fords who have won fellowships, scholarships, or grants.