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2026 Graduate Research Grant Recipients

Phi Kappa Phi is proud to present the 2026 Phi Kappa Phi Graduate Research Grant recipients. Each graduate student received a grant of up to $1,500. The program grant recipients are:

Abiola Adegoke, Virginia Tech

Adegoke, Ph.D. student at Virginia Tech, will use funds from the award to support research.

Comfort Aje, Purdue University

Aje, graduate student at Purdue University, will use funds from the award to present at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) 2026 Spring Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Veysel Altunel, Louisiana State University

Altunel, graduate research assistant at Louisiana State University, will use funds from the award to support a mixed-methods dissertation study on AI-supported translanguaging in English as a second language writing.

Anjumand Ashraf, Texas State University

Ashraf, graduate student at Texas State University, will use funds from the award to attend the American Water Works Association (AWWA) Annual Conference and Expo (ACE26) in Washington, DC.

Roselle Barretto, Kansas State University

Barretto, Ph.D. graduate at Kansas State University, will use funds from the award to complete all experimental work and data analyses of his hempseed bio-based adhesive research in preparation for publication.

Nikita Cudjoe, East Tennessee State University

Cudjoe, doctoral student at East Tennessee State University, will use funds from the award to assist with publication fees.

Di Fan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Fan, doctoral student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, will use funds from the award to support research study and to present at the Western Academy of Management (WAM) Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Amir Goli, The University of Kansas

Goli, graduate research assistant at the University of Kansas, will use funds from the award to support his Ph.D. research on human-AI collaboration in virtual reality and its effects on design cognition and spatial reasoning.

Nicole Johnson, University of West Georgia

Johnson, graduate teaching assistant at the University of West Georgia, will use funds from the award to initiate and implement Carrollton Conscious, a student organization devoted to advancing the objectives of humanistic, transpersonal, and critical psychology, and to travel to the 2026 APA Division 24 conference in Toronto, Canada to deliver a creative presentation.

Akhil Kanukula, University of Maryland, Baltimore Campuses

Kanukula, graduate research assistant at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, will use funds from the award to develop and scale-up a geospatial machine learning platform for wildfire risk assessment and crop health monitoring, and to present research findings at the IEEE GRSS conference.

Veeramani Karuppuchamy, The Ohio State University

Karuppuchamy, graduate research associate at The Ohio State University, will use funds from the award to present at the American Chemical Society Spring 2026 conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

Asmita Nagila, Texas A&M University

Nagila, graduate student at Texas A&M University, will use funds from the award to present at the Southeastern and Eastern Europe Symposium on Vegetables and Potatoes in Greece.

Precious Okafor, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Okafor, graduate student at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, will use funds from the award to support her graduate research, including materials, data collection, and professional development activities related to her academic and career goals.

Tasmin Rahman Omy, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center

Omy, graduate research assistant at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, will use funds from the award to buy a high-performance laptop and cover publication costs for timely completion of their dissertation.

Kyle Penta, University of Maryland Global Campus

Kyle Penta, student at University of Maryland Global Campus, will use the funds from the award to purchase a school laptop.

Zehra Sahin Ilkorkor, Virginia Commonwealth University

Sahin Ilkorkor, Ph.D. candidate at Virginia Commonwealth University, will use funds from the award to present at the American Society for Public Administration conference in Los Angeles, California.

Janelle Schenk, Northern Arizona University

Janelle Schenk, occupational therapy doctoral student at Northern Arizona University, will use funds from the award to support attendance and presentation of research at the American Occupational Therapy Association 2026 conference.

Richard Sedeafor, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Sedeafor, graduate assistant at The University of North Carolina Greensboro, will use funds from the award to support his research focused on microbiota-guided immunotherapy strategies in cancer treatments.

Michael Worfa, South Dakota State University

Worfa, graduate teaching/research assistant at South Dakota State University, will use funds from the award to support his research on chemical warfare agents.

Zhamilya Yessirkepova, Michigan State University

Yessirkepova, Ph.D. candidate and graduate assistant in the Department of Educational Administration at Michigan State University, will use funds from the award to support data collection for her dissertation on parent leadership and advocacy in the Head Start program.