Mckensey Miller Selected as an NSF GRFP Awardee

The Graduate College is pleased to announce that McKensey Miller has been selected as an awardee in the 2019 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) competition! The NSF GRFP recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in STEM and NSF-supported social science disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees. Fellows receive an annual stipend of $34,000 and full tuition and fees for up to three years.

McKensey is a first-year student in Texas State University’s master’s program in anthropology, with a focus in biological anthropology. Her research, under the supervision of Dr. Jill Pruetz, focuses on Senegal chimpanzees’ use of microclimates in a savanna-woodland environment as a means of thermoregulation, which has implications for species conservation, climate change, and human evolution. As an incoming master’s student, McKensey was awarded the Texas State Graduate Merit Fellowship.

McKensey received her undergraduate degree in Zoology and Environmental Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There, she was awarded the Academic Excellence Scholarship from the state of Wisconsin and a Foreign Language & Areas Studies (FLAS) Fellowship through the African Studies program for her study of Swahili.

McKensey became interested in her area of study after frequent trips to the zoo as a young child. As an undergraduate she had the opportunity to work for a research facility that worked with primates. Her passion truly became apparent when McKensey worked in Panama at a rehabilitation center for howler and spider monkeys rescued from the pet trade.

The advice McKensey has for fellow students that are thinking about applying is that, despite all the work, it will be worth it in the end. She encourages students to meet with Dr. Andrea Hilkovitz, external funding coordinator, as soon as possible. Her final piece of advice is “do not sell yourself short.”

McKensey hopes to become a professor at a university to continue researching primates. She has been lucky enough to have professors that have inspired her and helped fuel her passion and she hopes to one day have the same effect on students.