Graduate Student Jonah Bullen awarded prestigious fellowship.

Jonah Bullen of Maryville, Tennessee, is a master’s student in anthropology. Jonah was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. The oldest graduate fellowship of its kind, the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship helps ensure the quality, vitality and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. The five-year fellowship provides three years of financial support, including an annual stipend of $37,000 along with a $16,000 allowance for tuition and fees paid to the institution.

Bullen’s research focuses on using microscopic silica bodies found in fungi to study Indigenous pre-contact foodways and environmental management in North America. He has worked closely with Kandace Hollenbach, associate professor and associate head of the Department of Anthropology and associate curator of paleoethnobotany for UT’s McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture.

“Being awarded the NSF-GRFP is at the apex of my academic journey thus far, playing a pivotal role in my graduate study and career aspirations,” said Bullen. “Though I am grateful for this recognition, I attribute this milestone to the dedicated guidance provided to me by professors and graduate student mentors, as I firmly believe that this accomplishment is as much theirs as it is mine.”

His faculty mentor has been Alison Damick, manager of the Laboratory of Environmental Archaeology.