Mines PhD student wins National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship

Kaylyn Buchanan, a PhD student in mechanical engineering at Colorado School of Mines, has been awarded a 2025 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG).

The three-year fellowship, sponsored by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), U.S. Army Research Office and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) under the Office of the Under Secretary for Research and Engineering, provides full tuition, monthly stipend, travel funds for conferences and professional development and health insurance to propel talented individuals towards groundbreaking discoveries and innovations relevant to Department of Defense interests.

Buchanan, a first year PhD student, is a member of Mines’ Advanced Propulsion and Diagnostics Lab, led by Rajavasanth Rajasegar, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.

“Ever since I was in third grade, I knew that I wanted to be an engineer. More specifically, I’ve always wanted to work with energy conversion systems for power generation and propulsion applications,” Buchanan said. “With the help of the NDSEG Fellowship, I will be able to continue my academic career through research by working to understand the fundamental physics of combustion through high-speed optical and laser diagnostics — especially in high-speed propulsion systems. This will enable the design of more efficient systems, which is a critical step toward ensuring U.S. dominance in energy resilience and energy security while maintaining combat superiority.”

Established in 1989, the NDSEG Fellowship Program aims to increase the number of U.S. citizens trained in science and engineering disciplines vital to national security. More than 4,400 fellowships have been awarded from over 70,000 applications received since the program’s inception. 

“As a first step in her research journey as a DoD-NDSEG Fellow, Kaylyn will be spending her summer splitting time between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) in Ohio, collaborating with leading researchers and experts in the field,” Rajavasanth said.