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Michigan State University alumnus Aaron Philip (‘26) has been named a U.S. Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellow. He is the second Spartan in university history and one of only 29 students this year to earn the designation.
Fellows benefit from up to four years of support leading to a doctoral degree including tuition, an annual stipend of $45,000, a professional development stipend of $1,000 and a 12-week practicum.
The award will support Philip’s doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he will study matter at the smallest scales with tools such as analytic techniques, high-performance computing and machine learning.
Philip graduated from MSU and the Honors College in May with dual bachelor’s degrees in physics and mathematics through the College of Natural Science.
Originally from Los Alamos, New Mexico, Philip arrived in East Lansing as an Alumni Distinguished Scholar. He got an early start in paid undergraduate research through the Honors College’s Professorial Assistantship program, which contributed to him earning the nationally competitive Goldwater Scholarship.
Philip worked for four years at MSU’s Facility for Rare Isotope Beams with professors Witold Nazarewicz, Kyle Godbey and Pablo Giuliani. He initially joined their group via the Professorial Assistantship program. The work he conducted, along with Philip’s undergraduate thesis on a new Bayesian inference method to analyze nuclear fusion experiments, led to a first-author submission to a peer-reviewed journal.
Philip has also conducted research with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the University of Miami and the University of British Columbia. He has co-authored five research publications and presented his work at national and international conferences, often supported by travel funding through the Honors College and the Distinguished Student Awards Office.
In addition to his primary mentors at MSU, Philip would like to thank professors Jason Holt, Odelia Schwartz and Jianliang Qian for their guidance, support and mentorship.
“It’s important to seek out great mentors who can teach you how to think about science, give you the room to make mistakes and grow and support your broader identity outside of science,” Philip said.
He said he is also grateful to his friends, family and loved ones for their unwavering support.
Established in 1991, the U.S. Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship provides financial benefits and professional development opportunities to students pursuing doctoral degrees in fields that use high-performance computing to solve complex science and engineering problems.
This story originally appeared on the Distinguished Student Awards Office website.

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