blog posts

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  Meet our Fellows: Rachel Nixon, Link Foundation Fellow

  Feb 10, 2025 5:00 pm

  Rachel Nixon has spent more time than most shining lasers through liquids. As a graduate student in the Jain lab, she was awarded a two-year fellowship from the Link Foundation for her research on synthesizing ammonia as a fuel source. Read about her success.

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  From Applicant to Fellow: Essential Insights for NSF-GRFP Success

  Aug 15, 2024 1:45 pm

  Three National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellows share their experience with the application process. 

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  Exploring Career Pathways while in Graduate School

  Oct 27, 2023 2:00 pm

  Exploring your career options can be intimidating, but it doesn't have to be. Hear from recipients of the Graduate College's Career Exploration Fellowship about their time as fellows.

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  Meet Our Fellows: Biniyam Melesse, Fulbright-Hays DDRA Awardee

  Nov 1, 2021 4:30 am

  For Biniyam Melisse, winning a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) fellowship was “a match made in heaven.” 

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  Meet Our Fellows: Destiny Williams-Dobosz, NSF Graduate Research Fellow

  Jun 9, 2021 4:45 pm

  “Why is science so hard for students?” This question has intrigued Destiny Williams-Dobosz, a Ph.D. student in Educational Psychology and NSF Graduate Research Fellow.  

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  Meet Our Fellows: Matthew Boudreau, NCI Pre/Postdoctoral Fellow

  Sep 28, 2020 1:15 pm

  “All of us, unfortunately, have a personal experience with cancer impacting a friend or family member. It touches a lot of our hearts. I saw the depths of what we could not treat through a life experience of a friend,” Matthew Boudreau, PhD Candidate in Chemistry said. “I think that was the first spark for me to become involved in cancer research.”

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  Meet Our Fellows: Raquel Escobar, Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow

  Aug 17, 2020 12:15 pm

  Graduate education prepares you for many ways to positively impact the world around you. For Raquel Escobar, recent doctoral graduate in History, the opportunity to have a broad and active impact on the community comes through a Mellon/ACLS Public Fellowship. The fellowship allows Escobar to marry her scholarly expertise in history, memory and public humanities with a position at the Humanities Action Lab (HAL) at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

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  Meet Our Fellows: Daniel Raudabaugh, Schmidt Science Fellow

  Sep 9, 2019 8:00 pm

  It’s not every day you get to name a new species of fungi, but Daniel Raudabaugh (PhD Plant Biology, 2019) named two during his time as a graduate student at Illinois. Hongkongmyces snookiorum, named to honor his grandparents who let him collect on their land for his pilot study, and Coniella lustricola, Latin for “bog-loving.”

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  Meet Our Fellows: Busra Karagobek, Visiting Fulbright Fellow from Ankara, Turkey

  Feb 4, 2019 1:15 pm

  In this special "Meet Our Fellows" post, SAGE member Meera interviews Busra Karagobek, a PhD student from Turkey, who is currently studying at the University of Illinois under a Fulbright Scholarship. Let's meet Busra!

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  Meet Our Fellows: Safiyah Muhammad, Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow

  Oct 18, 2018 11:45 am

  Ford Fellow Safiyah Muhammad says that she learned to teach from the best – her mom. Her mother homeschooled her before she was old enough to enroll in kindergarten and served as her fourth grade teacher as well. “She never limited me in what I could do. She never told me I was too young. She was my very first and obviously most impactful teacher,” Safiyah said. With the help of the Ford Fellowship, she hopes to channel that feeling into her work as a researcher, teacher, and scholar at Illinois.

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  Meet Our Fellows: Nubras Samayeen, American Association of University Women

  Jul 20, 2018 1:45 pm

  When she finishes her degree at Illinois, Nubras Samayeen may be the first woman in Bangladesh to hold a PhD in Landscape Architecture. This is the realization of a goal she's had since she was a child and is, in no small part, something she's doing for her own two young daughters and for other Bangladeshi women who, like her, have unconventional dreams. Here’s her story.

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  Meet Our Fellows: Matt Haugen, Fulbright Fellow studying Chinese Sport Industry

  Jun 5, 2018 8:00 am

  Last April, after nearly a yearlong process and an arduous wait, Matthew Haugen was notified that he had been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship, which would allow him the opportunity to complete his dissertation research project studying sport education in China. His fellowship experience ultimately encouraged him to pivot his dissertation research project to better represent and inform the future he sees for himself as a scholar.

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  Meet Our Fellows: Matthew Klopfenstein, Fulbright Fellow in Moscow

  Apr 23, 2018 12:45 am

  Matthew Klopfenstein has spend the last seven months deep in the world of Russian archives exploring how the deaths of female pop stars in the early 1900s entered the public realm and became national phenomena. Read about Matthew's day to day life as a Fulbright Fellow living in Moscow, Russia.

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  Meet Our Fellows: Ford Fellows on Campus

  Jul 26, 2017 10:00 am

  To increase diversity in higher education, the Ford Foundation offers predoctoral, dissertation, and postdoctoral fellowships. The goal is three-fold – increasing university’s ethnic and racial diversity, maximizing the educational benefits of diversity, and increasing the number of professors who use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.

  We talked to three University of Illinois graduate students from across campus who received a Ford Fellowship to learn more about the program.

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  Meet Our Fellows: Lauren Hagler, Illinois Sloan Scholar

  Mar 9, 2016 9:15 am

  Lauren Hagler fell in love with Chemistry during her first general chemistry class at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. 

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  Where Are They Now? Cecily Garber

  Feb 24, 2016 10:45 am

  Where can a graduate degree from the University of Illinois take you? In this monthly series, we catch up with one recent Graduate College alum and ask the question: "Where are they now?".

  Cecily Garber completed her PhD in English (literature) in 2014. Now, she works as a Communications Officer and ACLS (American Council of Learned Societies) Public Fellow at the Council of Independent Colleges, an association that supports small liberal arts colleges. There, she runs social media channels, updates a website, writes and edits, helps organize a large symposium, and occasionally edits video and audio all with the goal of promoting the liberal arts.