USF World News

USF Announces Launch of Second Kalam Postgraduate Fellowship

TAMPA, Fla. (Oct. 14, 2016) – In celebration of President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's birth anniversary, the University of South Florida (USF) is pleased to announce the launch of the second Kalam Postgraduate Fellowship named in his honor. The Fellowship is for exemplary Indian students pursuing a PhD in specified Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs.

President Kalam was a strong advocate for young people and a passionate supporter of clean energy and energy independence. He visited USF in 2012 and is remembered affectionately by the university and the vibrant Indian heritage community in Tampa Bay, Fla.

The Kalam Fellow will receive $18,000 tuition per year. The Provost's Office will pay a nine-month stipend for the first year with the department/college contributing a teaching/research assistantship for up to an additional three years.

Established in 2015, USF named Avijit Sengupta as the first Kalam Fellow for the 2016-17 academic year. A design researcher from Kolkata, India, Sengupta demonstrated all of the Fellowship qualifications and more. A graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, a public engineering and research institution located in Mumbai, he spent three years working at the Center of Social Media Innovation for Communities at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He has conference publications in South Korea, New Zealand and the USA (twice with the American conference on Information Systems).