Two Grad Students Receive Phi Kappa Phi ‘Love Of Learning Awards’

Two Texas A&M University graduate students – Payman Dehghanian, a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering, and Erin Mattson, a master’s student in marine biology – have been selected to receive the “Love of Learning Award” presented by Phi Kappa Phi, the nation’s oldest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines.

The awards include $500 to be used to support their graduate studies.

Dehghanian will apply funds from the award toward dissertation research as he pursues his degree. Mattson will apply funds from the award toward a short externship at the Marine Mammal Pathobiology Laboratory in St. Petersburg, Fla.

The “Love of Learning” program, implemented in 2007, grants 160 awards annually in support of graduate and professional studies, doctoral dissertations, continuing education, career development, and travel related to teaching and studies. In addition to the “Love of Learning” program, the society gives more than $1 million each biennium to qualifying students and members through graduate fellowships, undergraduate study abroad grants, member and chapter awards, and grants for local and national literacy initiatives.

To learn more about these award programs, visit www.PhiKappaPhi.org/Awards.

About Phi Kappa Phi
Founded in 1897, Phi Kappa Phi is the nation’s oldest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines. Phi Kappa Phi inducts annually approximately 30,000 students, faculty, professional staff and alumni. The Society has chapters at more than 300 select colleges and universities in North America and the Philippines. Membership is by invitation only to the top 10 percent of seniors and graduate students and 7.5 percent of second-term juniors. Faculty, professional staff and alumni who have achieved scholarly distinction also qualify. The Society’s mission is “To recognize and promote academic excellence in all fields of higher education and to engage the community of scholars in service to others.” For more information about Phi Kappa Phi, visit www.PhiKappaPhi.org.