Physics graduate student receives prestigious summer fellowship

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
John Learned, (808) 956-2964
Professor, Physics and Astronomy
Thomas Browder, (808) 956-2936
Professor, Physics and Astronomy
Posted: Jun 3, 2014

Kevin Croker
Kevin Croker

University of Hawaii Physics and Astronomy graduate student Kevin Croker has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes (EAPSI) Fellowship.

This specific award is a cooperative venture between the NSF and the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS), and will allow Croker to spend the summer at the University of Tokyo and the Institute for Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU)/Kavli. He will collaborate with Dr. Naoki Yoshida on cosmological N-body simulations. These simulations of data will be used to elucidate the nature of dark matter and dark energy, the poorly understood components that comprise 95% of our universe.

The NSF award includes participation in the Pre-Departure Orientation in Washington, D.C., a summer stipend of $5,000, and a round trip airplane ticket to Tokyo. EAPSI partner agencies pay in-country living expenses during the Summer Institutes.

These awards provide U.S. science and engineering graduate students, like Kevin Croker, with first-hand research experiences in Australia, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore or Taiwan. Young researchers are introduced to the science, science policy and scientific infrastructure of their respective host countries and receive orientation to the society, culture and language. It is expected that EAPSI awards will help students initiate professional relationships to enable future collaboration with foreign counterparts.

The NSF and foreign counterpart science and technology agencies sponsor these international research institutes for U.S. graduate students in the above countries at times set by the counterpart agencies between June and August each year.

For more information, visit: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5284