Three graduate students in the College of Geosciences have been awarded prestigious 12-month Schlanger Fellowships. Oceanography graduate students Daniel Murphy and Masako Tominaga won awards for the 2007-2008 academic year. Geology and Geophysics graduate student Hiroko Kitajima won a fellowship for the 2006-2007 academic year. To put this accomplishment for Texas A&M in perspective, only five such awards were made nationwide during the year.

The Schlanger Fellowship Program offers highly competitive, merit-based awards for outstanding graduate students to conduct research related to the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP). The $28,000 per year award is to be used for stipend, tuition, benefits, research costs, and travel. Research may be directed toward the objectives of specific expeditions or may address broader themes.

Murphy’s research project is titled, “North Pacific Intermediate Water Circulation Over the Last 60 Kyr: Southern California Margin,” and Tominaga’s research is titled, “Determination of Volcanostratigraphy of ODP/IODP Hole 1256D: Core-Log Integration of Oceanic Crust Formed at a Superfast Spreading Rate.”

An A&M graduate student from Geology &Geophysics, Hiroko Kitajima, was chosen one year earlier for a 2006-2007 Schlanger Fellowship. Her research project was titled, “Sediment Consolidation State and Fluid Flow Properties of Nankai Trough and Cascadia Margin Accretionary Zones.”

Schlanger Fellows are chosen by a panel of scientists convened by the Consortium for Ocean Leadership. Ocean Leadership is a nonprofit organization, based in Washington D.C., that represents 95 of the leading public and private ocean research and education institutions, aquaria and industry with the mission to advance research, education and sound ocean policy. The organization also manages ocean research and education programs in areas of scientific ocean drilling, ocean observing, ocean exploration, and ocean partnerships.

For more information visit the College of Geosciences website or the Consortium for Ocean Leadership .