A record number of University of Georgia students and alumni have been awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships this year.

Twenty UGA students and alumni were among the 2,000 fellows selected from over 13,000 applicants nationwide for the 2017 competition. NSF Graduate Research Fellowships recognize and support outstanding graduate students in STEM-science, technology, engineering and mathematics-disciplines. Fellows benefit from a three-year annual stipend of $34,000, along with a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees, opportunities for international research and professional development, and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited U.S. institution of graduate education they choose.

"The University of Georgia continues to raise the bar for excellence in the STEM disciplines," said UGA President Jere W. Morehead. "I am proud of these 20 outstanding students and alumni whose research will help to solve some of the greatest challenges facing our world."

UGA's 2017 NSF Fellows and their fields of study are:

• Henry Adams, disease ecology.

• Sara Thomas Black, geography.

• William Wesley Booker, evolutionary biology.

• Caitlin Conn, ecology.

• Abigail Judith Courtney, microbial biology.

• Michael Ryan Clifford Dibble, chemistry of life processes.

• Austin Guy Garner, evolutionary biology.

• Eilidh Geddes, economics.

• Alexandra Michelle Harris, industrial/organizational psychology.

• Robert Zachary Crump Holmes, ecology.

• Kathryn M. Moore, biomedical engineering.

• Mariel Pfeifer, STEM education and learning research.

• Sydney Elizabeth Bishop Plummer, chemical oceanography.

• Matthew Joseph Powers, microbial biology.

• Robert Lundell Richards, ecology.

• Claire Stewart Teitelbaum, ecology.

• David Vasquez, ecology.

• Sheena Vasquez, biochemistry.

• Elizabeth Ann Watts, biochemistry.

• Avery Elizabeth Wiens, chemical theory, models and computational methods.

"NSF Graduate Research Fellowships are a mark of excellence for graduate students in STEM," said UGA Graduate School Dean Suzanne Barbour. "That so many of our students have been so honored is a testament to the strength of graduate education and research in STEM disciplines at the University of Georgia."