Yale Physics graduate student Eunice Beato, undergraduate Aaron Chizhik, and undergraduate alum Laura Zhou (now at Stanford University), all current and former Wright Lab members, were each awarded the 2025 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP).
Reina Maruyama, professor of physics and a member of Yale’s Wright Lab, who advises Beato and also advised Zhou, said “Eunice wrote a fabulous application on finding axions! I am so proud of her and her work, and we all look forward to working with her. Congratulations!”
Maruyama continued, “Congratulations to Laura! The award is well-deserved and I wish her well as she continues her studies at Stanford.”
Karsten Heeger, Eugene Higgins Professor and Chair of Physics, and director of Yale’s Wright Lab, who advises Chizhik said, “Congratulations to Aaron for winning the NSF graduate fellowship! This is a wonderful recognition and continuation of the work he started at Wright Lab. Over the past year, he worked on the development of instrumentation to reduce backgrounds in the CUORE and CUPID neutrino experiments. His proposal to develop new quantum sensors will help decipher if neutrinos are their own antiparticles and probe the nature of dark matter.”
Maruyama added, “Aaron’s proposal on finding neutrinoless double beta decay is inspired and forward-looking. I wish him well as he embarks on the next chapter of his studies at Berkeley.”
We also recognize the following Yale physics graduate students who received honorable mentions from the NSF GRFP—Jackie Baeza-Rubio, Morgan Cole, and Cecily Lowe—all members of Wright Lab—as well as fellow graduate student Halona Dantes.
Baeza-Rubio said, “while they usually award 2,300 students [per year]; this year, due to budget cuts, only 1,000 were awarded, so competition was tougher than ever.”
The purpose of the NSF GRFP is to help ensure the quality, vitality, and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing full-time research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) or in STEM education. The five-year fellowship includes three years of financial support including an annual stipend of $37,000. Click here for a list of awardees.