Graduate Student Accolades
Leon Min Wins American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship
Leon Min, a second-year PhD student in the Department of Bioengineering and the School of Medicine’s Medical Scientist Training Program, has been awarded a prestigious fellowship to support his research on tissue-engineered vascular grafts.
Two SSOE Grad Students among 5 Pitt SMART Scholarship-for-Service Awardees
Andrew Stricklin (ENGR ’23), a mechanical engineering PhD student in the Swanson School, and Lance Long, who is studying bioengineering in the Swanson School’s MS-to-PhD program, are among the five University of Pittsburgh students who earned the SMART Scholarship-for-Service, which provides merit-based scholarships from the U.S. government to bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral students seeking degrees in science, math, technology and engineering.
7 Pitt Grad Students among those named to the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has named its 2026 class of Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) scholars, which includes 7 Pitt graduate students among the awardees and 3 more in its honorable mentions.
Doctoral student selected for AJPH fellowship
Pitt Public Health doctoral student Aubree McMahon has been selected to join the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) Student Think Tank Fellowship for the 2026–2027 cohort.
Pitt Team Takes Top Prize at KPMG Cup Showcase
Varun Shelke, a master’s student studying information science at SCI, was part of a team with four Pitt Business graduate students who took home first place in the Fall 2025 KPMG Cup Showcase.
Yoni Preuss (MPA ’26) Wins American Planning Association Scholarship
When Yoni Preuss (MPA ’26) was awarded the Alex Yerkey Memorial Scholarship from the Southwest Section of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA PA SW) in recognition of his commitment to the field of urban planning, it marked the next step in a journey he traces back to a summer spent studying in Berlin, Germany.
Grad student discovers 11.5-billion-year-old galaxy sharing a feature with our own
Research led by Daniel Ivanov, a physics and astronomy graduate student in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences at Pitt, uncovered a contender for one of the earliest observed spiral galaxies containing a stellar bar, a sometimes-striking visual feature that can play an important role in a galaxy’s evolution.
MPA student receives Outstanding Student Award from ASPA
From the campaign trail to city hall, second-year Master of Public Administration (MPA) student David Bilger is putting public service into action—and being recognized for his impact.
PhD student earns SSWR Doctoral Fellows Award
Doctoral student Alex Fixler is the recipient of the 2026 Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) Doctoral Fellows Award for her dissertation proposal “Policy, Penalties, and Public Safety: Measuring the Impact of State Drug Laws on Arrest and Overdose Rates.” Alex was also a recent recipient of a Provost’s Dissertation Completion Fellowship.
ChemE PhD Alum Becca Segel Named to Forbes 30 Under 30 List
Becca Segel, a 2024 ChemE PhD graduate, was just named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Manufacturing & Industry list for 2026. Becca is the founder of FlowCellutions, which makes predictive diagnostics and hardware sensors for grid-scale batteries. Learn more in Becca's Forbes profile.
Pitt School of Medicine Student Receives Herbert W. Nickens Scholarship
Maheen Ibrahimi, a third-year student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, was determined to make a change upon her arrival to the city. Her efforts over the past few years have led her to be selected as a 2025 recipient of the Herbert W. Nickens Medical Student Scholarship from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).
Two Pitt Bioengineering PhD Students Awarded NSF Fellowships
Two Bioengineering PhD students at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering—Durwash Badr and Katelin Rahn—received competitive fellowships from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) in 2025.
Four Bioengineering PhD Students receive NIH F31 Fellowships
Four Bioengineering PhD students at the Swanson School of Engineering will receive funding toward their studies in 2025, thanks to prestigious awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Brunick and Soni selected as TIPH Ambassadors
Two Pitt Public Health graduate students, McKenna Brunick and Maahi Soni, have been selected as This is Public Health (TIPH) ambassadors for the 2025–26 academic year.
PhD candidate Hecheng Jin wins first place poster award at International MRI Conference
Hecheng Jin, PhD candidate in the 7T Bioengineering Research Program (7TBRP), received the first-place poster award at the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) Annual Meeting this spring for her presentation “Design and implementation of a 1H/31P dual-tuned head coil at 7T.”