UCI Earns 25 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships, Including Two from the School of Education
April 29, 2026
The University of California, Irvine has received 25 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships this year, recognizing outstanding graduate researchers across fields including engineering, life sciences, artificial intelligence, and education.
Among them are two Ph.D. students from the UC Irvine School of Education, both in the Human Development in Context (HDiC) program.
Among them are two Ph.D. students from the UC Irvine School of Education, both in the Human Development in Context (HDiC) program.
Jane Mikkelson
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Jane Mikkelson studies digital literacy, youth mental health, and how young people interact with technology. Her work focuses on designing school-based interventions that support healthy media use, building on prior experience in digital psychiatry research at Harvard Medical School.
Ella Rose’s research centers on early childhood development, with a focus on relational reasoning, identity, and motivation in mathematics learning. A UCI alumna, she previously worked in the Science of Learning Lab studying how cognitive development and family contexts shape learning. |
Ella Rose
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Together, their work reflects something central to the School of Education’s approach: not just studying learning in theory, but understanding the systems, tools, and experiences that shape it—and how to improve them.
About the NSF GRFP:
The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program is one of the nation’s most competitive awards for graduate students, supporting those with strong potential for impactful research careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
This year’s UCI fellows span a wide range of fields, including biomedical engineering, astronomy and astrophysics, environmental engineering, statistics, and artificial intelligence. That breadth reflects the depth of research happening across campus—and a shared focus on advancing knowledge in ways that matter.
The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program is one of the nation’s most competitive awards for graduate students, supporting those with strong potential for impactful research careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
This year’s UCI fellows span a wide range of fields, including biomedical engineering, astronomy and astrophysics, environmental engineering, statistics, and artificial intelligence. That breadth reflects the depth of research happening across campus—and a shared focus on advancing knowledge in ways that matter.
