MSU doctoral student receives prestigious NSF fellowship
Contact: Allison Matthews
Photo by: submitted
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A Mississippi State alumna currently pursuing a doctorate in applied physics at the university is receiving a major National Science Foundation honor.
Chandani N. Nandadasa recently was awarded the federal agency's East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute Fellowship to conduct research this summer. She will be working at South Korea's Sungkyunkwan University, a private research institution with campuses in Seoul and Suwon.
Nandadasa is a physics graduate of the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka who went on to complete a master's degree at MSU in 2013. Her current research is focused on the structural, magnetic and electronic properties of electrides, among other areas.
In the physics and astronomy department, she studies under professor Seong-Gon Kim, who also directs the College of Arts and Sciences' Center for Computational Sciences.
The NSF fellowship program was created to help U.S. graduate students in science and engineering initiate research relationships in other countries that may lead to future professional collaborations. Specifically involving Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan, it provides a $5,000 stipend and roundtrip international airfare.
The host--in Nandadasa's case, the National Research Foundation of Korea--provides additional support for the visiting student's living expenses.
At SKKU, she will be working with professors Sung Wng Kim and Young Hee Lee, both internationally renowned scientists in the field of 2-D nanoscale materials.
"It's great honor not only for me and our research group, but also for our department to receive this prestigious and competitive fellowship this year," Nandadasa said.
In addition to MSU's Kim and SKKU's Kim and Lee, she expressed appreciation to physics and astronomy department head Mark Novotny "for their invaluable assistance and suggestions throughout this process."
For information at MSU's physics and astronomy department, see www.physics.msstate.edu. MSU, the Magnolia State's flagship research institution, is online at www.msstate.edu.