Yale Physics students awarded 2026 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
Yale Physics graduate students Brandon Choi+, Katie Ream*, Josie Rose*; and undergraduate student Zachary Zitzewitz and undergraduate alum Richard Li ‘23 (currently at D-Wave (formerly, Quantum Circuits, Inc.) at Science Park and will be starting his Ph.D. studies at Princeton this Fall) were each awarded the 2026 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP). Mary Becker+, Forrest Hutchison, Bradyn Quintard*, Robert Scott+, and Ahrin Yang+ received honorable mentions.
The NSF GRFP is one of the nation’s most prestigious fellowship programs, providing three years of financial support, over five years, to graduate students who have demonstrated potential for significant achievements in research. 2,500 fellowships were awarded for the 2026-27 academic year, out of a highly competitive pool of nearly 14,000 applicants nationwide, based on their intellectual merit and broader impacts, including their potential to contribute to scientific innovation.
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.
*Member of Wright Lab
+Incoming graduate student
Brandon Choi recently graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a B.S. in physics and will be beginning his physics PhD at Yale this fall. During his undergraduate career, he has worked on a range of projects, from turbulence to chaos to plasmas, and is broadly interested in developing techniques to understand and solve highly coupled systems – particularly in the context of high energy physics. To this end, he is eager to conduct research in particle theory. Beyond research, he has recently become interested in science policy and desires to invest efforts into such endeavors.
Choi commented, “I am excited and honored to have received the NSF GRFP, especially in light of the modern funding landscape. Moreover, I am indebted to the various mentors – both formal and informal – that have invested in me throughout my undergraduate career.”
Katie Ream works with associate professor David Moore on the BeEST (Beryllium Electron capture in Superconducting Tunnel junctions) experiment, which implants Be7 into superconducting tunnel junctions and measures the recoil energy spectrum of the Be7 via electron capture into Li7 and a neutrino. BeEST searches for BSM physics and primarily searches for the sterile neutrino. Katie is currently working on developing an energy correction to data from BeEST, specifically data from the electron capture events and laser events in the BeEST detector, to correct for non-physical effects. This correction will significantly improve data resolution for future analyses. Later on in her PhD, Katie hopes to lead future analysis efforts in phase 4 of BeEST by implanting other isotopes into the BeEST and carefully studying their recoil energy spectrums. In her free time, Katie sings in the Yale Camerata choral ensemble and volunteers in outreach efforts through the department.
Moore said, “Congratulations to Katie on receiving the NSF GRFP this year! Katie is working on a relatively new effort in our group to search for sterile neutrino experiments as part of the BeEST collaboration, and we are excited that receiving the GRFP will allow her to help lead this work in the coming years.”
Josie Rose works with Horace D. Taft Professor of Physics Helen Caines in the Wright Lab Relativistic Heavy Ion Group (RHIG) on jet substructure measurements with ALICE at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). She plans to use energy energy correlators to study jet modification in the quark-gluon plasma. Josie graduated from Ohio State, where she studied physics and astrophysics and worked on stellar intensity interferometry. In her free time, she enjoys being active outdoors.
Caines said, “Congratulations to Josie, Katie, Bradyn, Forrest, and Nat. I was particularly happy to hear that Josie was granted a Fellowship. She has made an excellent start to her studies in our relativistic heavy-ion research group, and this award ensures she can continue her collaboration on ALICE, travel to CERN, and contribute to our understanding of the properties and evolution of the Quark Gluon Plasma.”
Zachary Zitzewitz ‘26 is a double major in intensive physics and mathematics with a certificate in quantum science and engineering. At Yale, Zachary works with Professor Logan Wright’s group in the Applied Physics Department on projects leveraging quantum properties of light to perform computations faster and more efficiently. He also spent three summers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, contributing to various projects across the Advanced Electro-Optical Systems and Optical and Quantum Communications groups including a scalable solid-state quantum memory module. Outside of the laboratory, Zachary served as president of the Yale Undergraduate Math Society, leader of Yale’s Rocketry Team, and in leadership positions in other physics-adjacent student organizations including the Yale Undergraduate Quantum Computing group. This fall, Zachary will begin his PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he will continue to pursue his interests at the intersection of optics and computation.
Zitzewitz commented, “I am very honored to receive the NSF GRFP award and am immensely grateful for everyone who has helped me along my scientific journey thus far.”
Logan Wright, assistant professor of applied physics, commented, “I congratulate Zachary on this recognition of his outstanding promise as young researcher, and NSF and their generous reviewers on a brilliant investment in science and our nation’s future. I look forward to Zachary’s discoveries and inventions during his PhD at MIT. “
Steven Girvin, Sterling Professor of Physics, added, “Zachary has been an outstanding student during his time at Yale. In addition to taking many graduate level courses and carrying out research in a variety of labs, he was an excellent peer tutor in my quantum information course, PHYS 3450. He has also been very active in YuQC, the Yale undergraduate quantum club. I am very pleased to learn that he has been awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.”