UCLA aerospace engineering Ph.D. student, Dylan Dickstein, has been awarded the esteemed NSF GRFP (National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program) for his exemplary intellectual merit and broader impacts. Moreover, Dickstein scored a rare perfect 6/6 “excellent” ratings placing him among the top aerospace engineering applicants in the country.
Prior to embarking on a Ph.D. from UCLA, Dickstein received his B.S. in June of 2016 in aerospace engineering and a minor in mathematics from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Most recently, he finished the M.S. portion of his UCLA aerospace engineering graduate studies in December of 2017. Since enrolling at UCLA in Fall 2016, Dickstein has researched erosion from high heat flux in microengineered materials for deep space exploration under the guidance of Distinguished Professor Nasr Ghoniem.
Since its inaugural year in 1952, the NSF has financed over 46,500 Graduate Research Fellowships from over 500,000 applicants with the objective of encouraging fundamental scientific research. Numerous fellows have become Nobel Laureates and affiliates of the National Academy of Sciences. The competition is open to qualified senior undergraduate students as well as new graduate students in their first two years. The application consists of biographical information, transcripts, letters of recommendation and two essays: a research proposal and a personal statement.
The NSF GRFP award consists of financial support for three years within a five-year fellowship period. Each year of tenure includes a $34,000 stipend and a $12,000 tuition payment to the graduate institution. The backing is aimed at graduate work that consummates in a research-based master’s or doctoral degree in a STEM field. Fellows can also take advantage of international research partnerships through the Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide (GROW) initiative, professional career advancement by way of the Graduate Research Internship Program (GRIP), and the NSF’s Career-Life Balance (CLB) initiative.