Jill Hauer, a doctoral student in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Genetics at the University of Iowa, earned a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship for 2017.

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) awards fellowships to outstanding graduate students based on their demonstrated potential for significant achievements in science and engineering.

“I am very grateful and excited to receive this award,” says Hauer, a native of Story City, Iowa. “I’ve been fortunate to have such great and supportive mentors and colleagues to work with at the University of Iowa, and I’m very humbled to have support from the NSF as well.”

The GRFP provides three years of financial support within a five-year fellowship period ($34,000 annual stipend and $12,000 cost-of-education allowance to the graduate institution) for graduate study that leads to a research-based master’s or doctoral degree.

In her application, Hauer proposed to study the genetic basis of C3 glomerulopathy, a disease that causes the kidneys to malfunction. Features of this disease include high levels of protein in the urine, blood in the urine, and low levels of protein in the blood. Hauer intends to use a combination of computational molecular simulations and experimental assays to analyze genetic changes found in patients with the disease.