BEAUFORT, N.C. – Yasmin J. von Dassow, a PhD student at the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort, N.C., has been awarded a three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship.

The fellowship, which is among the most prestigious fellowships awarded to doctoral and masters students in the United States, carries a $30,000 annual stipend for von Dassow and an annual cost-of-education allowance of $10,500 for Duke.

Von Dassow is a second-year PhD student studying the ecology and evolution of reproduction in marine invertebrates with Dan Rittschof, Lee Hill Snowdon Professor of Ecology.  Her doctoral thesis focuses on the strategies that marine invertebrates use to protect their developing embryos.

A native of San Angelo, Texas, she received a Master of Science degree in geological sciences from the University of California at Riverside in 2006, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in integrative biology from the University of California at Berkeley in 2001.

NSF Graduate Research Fellowships support outstanding graduate students who have demonstrated potential for significant achievements in science and engineering research.  Many past NSF Fellows have gone on to become leaders in their fields and some have been honored as Nobel Laureates.

The Duke Marine Lab is a year-round research and teaching campus located on Pivers Island.  It is part of Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.