YOUNGSTOWN YSU graduate receives fellowship

About one in 10 applicants is accepted.
YOUNGSTOWN -- Karen L. Howard of Girard, who earlier this month received her master's degree in chemistry from Youngstown State University, has been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
The award provides three years of financial support toward the pursuit of a doctoral degree in any field of science or engineering. It consists of an annual stipend of $27,500 plus a cost-of-education allowance of $10,500 to cover tuition and fees.
Only about one of every 10 applicants to the graduate research fellow program is accepted. Applicants are judged on intellectual merit and the potential broader impacts of their proposed research on education, diversity and society.
Plans
Howard will be using the fellowship to attend SUNY-College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, N.Y., as a student in the Ph.D. program in chemistry. She plans a career in environmental chemistry.
A 1983 graduate of Sturgeon Bay High School in Sturgeon Bay, Wisc., Howard earned a dual bachelor's degree in biology and secondary education from Pennsylvania State University in 1988. She taught high school chemistry for 12 years in the Seneca Valley School District in Harmony, Pa.
She is the daughter of Lloyd and Linda Shaffer, formerly of Sturgeon Bay, Wisc., and now of Brookville, Pa.