A graduate student in the University of Kentucky's biosystems and agricultural engineering department recently was named a 2001 Graduate Fellow by the National Science Foundation.

Nicholas Coleman joins the ranks of the elite at UK and in the nation. He is now one of four NSF Fellow graduate students in the department, which is an unprecedented achievement for the department and for the UK College of Agriculture.

"Like last year, we are the only department of biosystems and agricultural engineering, or similar program, in the United States to receive such an honor," said Larry Turner professor and chair of the UK BAE department.

Each year the NSF offers approximately 900 graduate fellowships to fulfill their goal of ensuring the vitality of human resource base of science, math and engineering in the U.S. For 2001, Coleman was one of 253 fellows named in engineering. These fellowships provide three years of support for graduate study that can be used over a five-year period.

Coleman is a Louisiana native and received a bachelor of science from Louisiana State University. He is working with Sue Nokes, UK assistant professor in BAE, to apply engineering to solid- state fermentation processes for enzyme production using thermophyllic bacteria.

Other NSF fellows in the department include Mari Chinn, Erin Wilkerson and Grace Danao. Chinn also is studying solid-state fermentation. Wilkerson is studying environmental control of greenhouses and Danao is researching food engineering.

"This is a tremendously high honor for Nick and represents significant recognition of his academic accomplishments," Turner added. "Having these brilliant graduate students in our program is a tribute to the faculty and students of the department, as well as to the college and UK."