Twelve students associated with Texas ECE have been selected to receive prestigious fellowships from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) for 2026. The NSF GRFP recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing full-time research-based master's and doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, including STEM education. 

Since 1952, NSF has funded over 70,000 Graduate Research Fellowships out of more than 500,000 applicants. More than 40 Fellows have gone on to become Nobel laureates, and more than 450 have become members of the National Academy of Sciences.

This represents the most Texas ECE students to receive the award in one year.

The students who received NSF GRFPs are:

Tony Chae 
Engineering - Bioengineering

Bill Fan
Comp/IS/Eng - Robotics

David Harper 
Materials Research - Photonic Materials

Pawan Kashyap
Engineering - Computer Engineering (including Networking)

Will Meiners
Engineering - Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Noah Mugan
Physics and Astronomy - Quantum Information Science

Vidhya Prabhu
Comp/IS/Eng - Wired and Wireless Networking

Sairamana Sivakumar
Engineering - Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Vivek Tallavajhula
Engineering - Quantum Engineering

Yajat Yadav
Comp/IS/Eng - Machine Learning

Bill Zheng
Comp/IS/Eng - Robotics

Jadon Zheng
Engineering - Electrical and Electronic Engineering