The National Science Foundation invites you to apply for the 2009 Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF-GRFP) competition. This program offers up to 3 years of graduate school support worth over $120,000 to each awardee - last year 913 awards were granted. Benefits include a $30,000 annual stipend, a $10,500 annual cost of education allowance, a one time $1,000 travel allowance, and access to TeraGrid supercomputing facilities. U.S. citizens, nationals, and permanent residents at or near the beginning of their graduate study seeking research-based Master's and/or PhD degrees in NSF-supported science(including social science and psychology) and engineering disciplines are eligible to apply. The application process is currently open and closes early November 2008. We encourage interested applicants to visit www.nsf.gov/grfp/ or www.nsfgrfp.org <http://www.nsfgrfp.org/> for additional information concerning benefits, eligibility, and tips on applying. Interested applicants should strongly consider preparing their applications as early as possible to help increase their chances of winning.
The GRFP is sponsored by the NSF, which is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 "to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense..." With an annual budget of about $6.06 billion, NSFis the funding source for approximately 20 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America's colleges and universities. In many fields such as mathematics, computer science and the social sciences, NSF is the major source of federal backing. NSF funding opportunities can be found at http://www.nsf.gov/funding/. The NSF-GRFP Operations Center is administered by the American Society for Engineering Education (http://www.asee.org/fellowships).
