Ph.D. student earns prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Congratulations to Devon Tuma for receiving a 2021 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (GRFP). This highly competitive grant provides a three-year stipend, coverage of tuition and fees, and opportunities for international research and professional development.

Tuma is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering with research interests in computer security and privacy. He finished his B.S. in computer science at the University of Minnesota in 2020.

The NSF GRFP helps ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and reinforces its diversity. Since 1952, the program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.

As the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind, the GRFP has a long history of selecting recipients who achieve high levels of success in their future academic and professional careers. The reputation of the GRFP follows recipients and often helps them become life-long leaders that contribute significantly to both scientific innovation and teaching.

This year, more than 2,000 students were GRFP Awardees and more than 1,800 were recipients of Honorable Mention.

Suzie Hoops, a Ph.D. student in Professor Dan Knights lab, received an Honorable Mention. Each year, the NSF bestows Honorable Mention to meritorious applicants who do not receive fellowship awards. The Honorable Mention is also considered a significant national academic achievement.