Graduate student Michael Yoho, recipient of the Nuclear Nonproliferation International Safeguards Fellowship.
Michael Yoho, a graduate student advised by Professor Sheldon Landsberger in the Nuclear and Radiation Engineering Program, has recently been awarded the Nuclear Nonproliferation International Safeguards Fellowship Program (NNIS). The fellowship provides $50K per year for three years toward his stipend, health insurance and tuition as well as attendance for one conference per year. Michael is at Los Alamos National Laboratory doing his first internship.
Along with his University of Texas Presidential Fellowship awarded in 2012, which covers his first, fourth and fifth year, he will be funded for the duration of his Ph.D. Yoho graduated from this department in 2012 with a 3.94 GPA.
The Fellowship
The initial fellowship appointment is for a 12-month period and is renewable for up to a total of 60 months or five years. Throughout the fellowship appointment, graduate students must be enrolled full time at an approved university and perform research within the objectives of the fellowship program. During the summer months, fellows are to continue working toward achieving a doctoral degree. Students may choose to conduct research relevant to their specialization, enroll in summer classes, complete a practicum assignment at a national laboratory, or do a combination of these three activities.
A brief bio
Yoho grew up in Northern California in a rural, mountainous community in Trinity County. After graduation from high school, he spent four years in the military and one year as a math major at the University of California Davis. Prior to his college education, Michael served for five years in the United States Army as a Sergeant from May 2004-09 and was stationed in Iraq in 2007-08.
Yoho began his undergraduate career in this department in 2009, graduating in 2012. His interest in nuclear engineering began in his senior year when he worked on a senior design project supervised by Dr. Sheldon Landsberger. That prompted him to attend graduate school, beginning in 2013. His research topic is in low level counting of plutonium and other actinides.
He plans to spend the summer working at Los Alamos National Laboratory to fulfill the practicum assignment at a national laboratory requirement for the fellowship requirement.
