Megan Veltri Selected as an NSF GRFP Awardee
The Graduate College is pleased to announce that Megan Veltri 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.
Megan 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 guidance of Dr. Kate Spradley, focuses on using facial asymmetry to understand the biological implications of social race. Megan believes race issues are highly polarized in the United States today. By understanding developmental stress and facial asymmetry, she can assess if people of color are embodying their social race. She focuses on the way that the implications of someone's social race can affect their overall health and well-being in a negative way.
Megan currently works as a graduate research assistant in the Department of Anthropology as a skeletal analyst, where she estimates the biological profile on human remains from a historic cemetery in Central Texas. During her first semester as a graduate student, she worked as a skeletal analyst and as an instructional assistant in the Department of Biology. She also volunteers with the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State (FACTS), where she assists the center with their willed-body donation program, documents donations for the longitudinal decomposition study, and assists the coordinator in courses and outreach through FACTS. Additionally, she volunteers for Operation Identification, a project that aims to identify undocumented migrants that perished while crossing the Mexican border into Texas.
Megan received her bachelor’s degree from Texas State University, where she was the recipient of the 2015 Sallie Beretta Outstanding Senior Woman Award. As an undergraduate, she served as the President of the Forensic Anthropology Society. In this role, she planned and executed the 2nd Annual Forensic Anthropology Conference. Before returning to Texas State as a master’s student, she worked at Pape-Dawson Engineers, where she assisted the Department of Archaeology as a bioarchaeologist technician. She estimated the biological profile for over 250 human skeletons from another historic cemetery in Texas. Moreover, she aided the group in archaeological surveys and excavations for land development projects.
Megan encourages prospective applicants to apply even if they think they are not qualified. While it was a great deal of work, she says, “You will meet some amazing people and write some wonderful and exciting research.”