CLARKSTON, Ga.—Georgia State University Perimeter College STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) alumni Yash yee Logan and Gedeon Nyengele have been named National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellows.
The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported STEM disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.
Both students are studying electrical engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, and they credit Perimeter College’s Peach State Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (PSLAMP) program for their academic success.
The two scholars will join other STEM alumni at the Clarkston Campus April 14 to talk about their research and graduate studies. The special panel for current STEM students will begin at 1 p.m. in room CN2220.
Logan has long been interested in helping individuals with speech disorders communicate effectively. She will do her graduate research at Georgia Tech’s Audio Signal Processing and Interpretation Research laboratory, where she is concentrating on digital signal processing.
Data for her research are being supplied through Georgia State’s Aphasia and Motor Speech Disorders Laboratory, directed by Dr. Jacqueline Laures Gore. Logan said her research will assess “how music therapy helps people who cannot easily ‘find’ the words to speak because of stroke or other impairments.”
Logan credits the community service and technical/personal statement writing workshops required through the PSLAMP program and the support of the STEM faculty with helping her gain confidence in her abilities as a researcher.
“When I was invited to come and participate in PSLAMP,” she said, “you have to get involved and do community service. I had fun—and eventually, it became more than just fulfilling the requirements of the program. It helped me overcome my shyness.”
Logan will graduate with her bachelor’s in electrical engineering in May. She has chosen to stay at Georgia Tech to finish her master’s and doctoral programs, thanks to the research fellowship.
Nyengele cites his early exposure to research through Perimeter’s Summer Bridge research program and other undergraduate research experiences offered to PSLAMP scholars as “the backbone of my current accomplishments.
“There is no way I could have gotten here without those opportunities,” he said. “They shaped me and turned me into the self-motivated and independent researcher I am today.”
Nyengele is working on developing low-power wireless protocols for embedded IoT (Internet of Things ) devices that connect hardware and software.
He will pursue his NSF research this fall at Stanford University, where he has received a Stanford Graduate Fellowship.