Biology Graduate Student Receives NSF Fellowship to Study in Japan

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Geoffrey Zahn

Geoffrey Zahn, a graduate student in biological sciences, has been awarded a National Science Foundation East Asia Pacific Summer Institute Fellowship. He will conduct research on the links between soil community structure and carbon cycling under warming conditions in Tsukuba, Japan, this summer at the National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences.

Zahn earned his Bachelor of Science degree in ecology, evolution and systematics at Missouri State University before coming to work in professor Fred Spiegel’s lab at the University of Arkansas to study the ecology of slime molds. 

Fellowship awardees receive a $5,000 stipend and roundtrip international airfare. Foreign co-sponsoring organizations will provide additional support to cover EAPSI fellows' living expenses.

The National Science Foundation's East Asia Pacific Summer Institute Fellowship provides U.S. graduate students in science and engineering with first-hand research experiences in Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Singapore or Taiwan. It introduces the students to the science, science policy and scientific infrastructure of the respective location as well familiarizes the students with the society, culture and language of the location. One of the primary goals of fellowship is to help students initiate scientific relationships that will better enable future collaboration with foreign counterparts.