Two doctoral students awarded graduate fellowships

Joseph (Joey) Cicchese and William (Billy) Kelley received 2019 Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship Awards.

Joey was selected for the Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship Award based on his stellar GPA and his strong record of scientific publication, with both an original research and review publication as a contributing first author. He received outstanding evaluation scores when he helped teach a graduate course, and has served as the president of the Chemical Engineering Graduate Society.

Billy was selected for the honor because he is an outstanding researcher and student. He has already produced two first-author and one second-author journal publications, and has one manuscript in revision and another to be submitted soon. Billy has demonstrated an excellent ability to teach our undergraduate students, earning superior reviews when he taught a sophomore level, material balance course. He has also served as one of the ChE department’s peer mentor, where he was an advisor to younger graduate students.

The Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship is one of the most prestigious awards given to graduate students by the Rackham Graduate School. The award takes into consideration professional papers and presentations, publications, honors, as well as academic standing.