Natasha Cover, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, was selected as a recipient of the 2009 GEM (Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Science) fellowship program. Natasha’s fellowship will be sponsored by Johnson & Johnson, Inc. In addition to the Ph.D. fellowship, she will participate in a summer R&D internship at Johnson & Johnson, Inc., in the area of stem cell engineering and regenerative medicine.

Natasha is a former NSF Florida-Georgia Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (FGLSAMP) Bridge to the Doctorate fellow (2006-2008) in the USF College of Engineering. As an undergraduate at Virginia Union University (Richmond, Virginia), she was a participant in both the NSF LSAMP and NIH Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC U STAR) programs.

The National GEM Consortium includes “Fortune 500” companies, national labs, and research universities, all committed to addressing the critical shortfall in the production of American engineering and scientific talent. The GEM Fellowship program is designed to increase the participation and opportunities for underrepresented minorities at the master's and doctoral level in engineering and the sciences through graduate financial assistance and paid summer internships.

This current award represents the fourth GEM fellowship offered to College of Engineering doctoral students within the past three years. For additional information on the GEM fellowship program, please contact Dr. Sylvia W. Thomas at (813) 974-4011 or at sylvia@eng.usf.edu.