The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) helps ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and reinforces its diversity. 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.

Rachel Dziatko is a second year Ph.D. student in the Bragg lab group. Rachel is interested in studying the photophysics of novel aluminum based plasmonic materials using a wide variety of techniques including FTIR, UV-Vis, and transient absorption spectroscopy.  She is working to design and build systems for measuring both steady-state and time-resolved spectra of aerosolized nanoparticles to determine how their optical properties differ from nanoparticles in liquid suspensions. She hopes to use these new techniques to study Al/AZO core-shell nanoparticles and explore their potential application in the enhancement of photocatalysis.

Congrats, Rachel!