Two Dartmouth students have their sights set on very different kinds of science, courtesy of the National Science Foundation (NSF). As recipients of NSF Graduate Research Fellowships, Eshin Jolly will pursue graduate studies in cognitive neuroscience at Dartmouth while Aryeh Drager ’12 will head to Colorado State University to study atmospheric science...

...“I am pretty excited,” says Drager. “The NSF fellowship offers additional research flexibility and opens the door to collaborations that would not otherwise be possible. My main research focus will be tropical convection”—the science of vertical movement in the atmosphere, where layers of air rise and fall, leading to phenomena such as thunderstorms. “It has implications for global climate, as well as applications to the study of hurricanes.”

Drager, a native of West Hartford, Conn., is currently a teaching assistant at Thayer School of Engineering. “Under the guidance of Professor Miles Blencowe [physics and astronomy] I effectively quadruple minored in engineering, physics, earth science, and applied math,” he says. His proposal to the NSF fellowship program was an extension of work he did as a summer intern at Colorado State, where he analyzed data from CloudSat, an experimental satellite that uses radar to observe clouds and precipitation from space...

...Drager and Jolly are among more than 13,000 who submitted applications for the 2013 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship competition. Of these, 2,000 received award offers. In addition, six Dartmouth students were accorded honorable mentions including engineering PhD candidate Priyanka Nadar.