The National Science Foundation has awarded three first-year PhD students in the Department of Linguistics Graduate Research Fellowships.

The Foundation awarded a total of 10 students the competitive fellowship, and no other university had more than two students represented.

Linguistics department head John McCarthy said in a Thursday release that the Graduate Research Fellowships are one of the most prestigious, noteworthy forms of recognition for students early in their graduate careers.

Each fellow will receive an annual stipend of $30,000 for three years, with an additional $10,500 cost-of-education allowance to the campus and $1,000 for international travel.

The three awardees include: Elizabeth Bogal-Allbritten, a 2009 Swarthmore College graduate who originally hails from Murray, Ky., and is focusing on syntax and semantics with a focus on Navajo language in her doctoral work; Claire Moore-Cantwell, an Oakhurst, Calif. native who graduated last year from the University of California, Los Angeles, and is specializing in phonetics and phonology, concentrating specifically on the Semitic languages; and Robert Staubs, a computational phonology doctoral candidate who graduated last year from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.

– Collegian News Staff