UC Riverside has received seven grants from the U.S. Department of Education’s Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) Program. The program offers grants to academic departments and programs at higher education institutions to fund graduate fellowships. Students with strong academic records and who have demonstrated financial need and intent to pursue the highest degree available in their field of study at the institution are eligible for the fellowships.
The grants will support the following fellowships at UCR:
GAANN Fellowships in Chemistry; Jingsong Zhang, principal investigator.
GAANN Fellowships in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; Sean E. O'Leary, principal investigator.
GAANN Fellowships in Computer Science and Engineering; Emiliano De Cristofaro, principal investigator.
GAANN Fellowships in Entomology; Kerry Mauck, principal investigator.
GAANN Fellowships in Neuroscience; Khaleel Razak, principal investigator.
GAANN Fellowships in Physics; Vivek Aji, principal investigator.
Special Education GAANN; Michael R. Solis, principal investigator.
Five of the seven UCR teams will receive slightly more than $1 million each over the next three years to support six or more graduate students per year; the GAANN Fellowships in Computer Science and Engineering will receive more than $1.3 million for three years to support six graduate students; the special education proposal team will receive $650,000 to support three to five doctoral students over a five-year period.
“This grant will help our department support our graduate students financially in the face of shrinking resources for graduate education within the UC system,” said Mauck, an associate professor of entomology. “It will also address a projected shortfall in qualified applicants for jobs in the agricultural sciences. Students participating in the program will receive top quality training in teaching, research, and professional development.”
Solis, an associate professor in the School of Education, said the proposal his team submitted received a score of 102 out of 100, with the bonus points based on competitive priority.
“No weaknesses in the proposal were articulated by the reviewers, which is very rare,” he said. “Despite being one of the two smallest program areas in the School of Education with only three faculty, our Special Education faculty continue to be the most productive program area for acquiring external funding — $8.19 million over the last five years.”
The GAANN programs at UC Riverside are designed to recruit, retain, and matriculate top graduate students, especially from underrepresented backgrounds, to pursue research, teaching, and mentorship.