Patricia Mathu was one of seven University of Texas at Dallas students and alumni selected for the 2022 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program.
The highly competitive national program provides a stipend and tuition support for students pursuing graduate studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Mathu was born and raised in suburban Milwaukee, but as she worked toward earning her degree at UTD, she became passionate about food and agriculture and how the environment affects them.
Mathu, a National Merit Scholar and a Eugene McDermott Scholar, majored in history in the School of Arts and Humanities but dabbled in many other areas of study at UTD, including archaeology, geography and political science. She said the interdisciplinary learning opened a world of opportunities.
“My time at UT Dallas has allowed me to explore different things that I wouldn’t have done if I had been in a straight anthropology or archaeology program,” she said. “The NSF evaluators talked about how refreshing it was to see someone with such an interdisciplinary experience.”
In addition to participating in the University’s sustainability program, Mathu, who graduated magna cum laude and with Collegium V honors, spent last summer working and living on a farm and learning about the resilience of various food networks. She will attend the University of Alabama to purse a master’s degree in anthropology.
She said the fellowship will give her the option to extend her graduate education and eventually pursue a doctorate.
Read more in the original article by Phil Roth in the UTD News Center.