Students, faculty mystified as NSF turns back applications for prestigious fellowship program

When Kulindu Vithanachchi’s phone lit up with an update from the National Science Foundation about his application for a high-profile early-career fellowship, he couldn’t wait to open the message, hopeful for big news. But not this news.

Vithanachchi, a University of Arizona undergraduate and budding microbiologist, was in the lab when he learned that his application for NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program had been “returned without review,” turned back before outside experts had a chance to judge the scientific merit of the proposal. The agency’s email said his submission included proposed research that made him ineligible for the program — and that the decision was final. The email did not specify further.

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