Awards Adding Up for UH-Hilo Math Student

The honors and awards are piling up for a graduating University of Hawaii at Hilo student.

Marissa Loving, who is majoring in mathematics and computer science, has been selected for a prestigious National Science Foundation research program.

Loving was among 70 math students chosen from more than 13,000 applicants for the NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship.

The award, which includes a three-year stipend of $30,000 annually, plus $12,000 per year to help pay for the cost of education to a graduate school of the recipient’s choice, is open to graduating college seniors as well as first- and second-year PhD students.

Loving, a UH Presidential Scholar, this fall will attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she has also been awarded the Graduate College Distinguished Fellowship. That award comes with full tuition and fee waiver as well as a $25,000 stipend for three years.

The two fellowships, combined with other awards, bring the total Loving will receive for her doctoral studies to more than $500,000.

 “The fellowships will allow me to focus on research, rather than on teaching, working or other commitments during my graduate studies,” Loving said.  “It is with excitement that I look forward to what mathematics holds for me in the future.”

Loving, who was born in Honolulu and grew up in Honomu, has already had work accepted for publication.

A paper entitled “Non-Stable K-Theory for Leavitt Path Algebras,” which she co-authored, will appear in the peer-reviewed “Rocky Mountain Journal of Mathematics.”