ICD PhD student Lydia Lewis awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

The NSF Fellowship program recognizes and supports outstanding students who are pursuing research-based graduate degrees in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. Fellows receive a three-year annual stipend of $37,000 and a cost of education allowance for tuition and fees, as well as opportunities for professional development.

Lydia's broad research interests include relationships between adolescent neurodevelopment, sleep health, and the impacts of early adversity, including neighborhood-related exposures. In her upcoming research, she will focus on understanding whether sleep is a mechanism underlying the effects of air pollution on the adolescent brain. Her future plans include studying sleep as a potential buffer for the impacts of other neighborhood characteristics. She also hopes to incorporate geo-coding methods in her future research. 

Lydia received a B.S. in Neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh in 2018, where she worked with Dr. Maria Jalbrzikowski studying age-associated trajectories of white matter development in adolescents with and without psychosis. During her time at Pittsburgh, Lydia completed a certificate in Global Health, which contributed to her interests in the social determinants of health. 

Congratulations Lydia!