CCEE Ph.D. student Jenero Knowles, advised by Dr. Casey Dietrich, was awarded the Witherspoon Graduate Fellowship for Summer 2022 from NC State’s Graduate School. The competitive one-year award, named in honor of Dr. Augustus M. Witherspoon, who was the second Black graduate student to receive a doctorate from NC State and the first Black professor at the university, is given to rising second-year graduate students who support Black communities at NC State and beyond. 

“It is a great honor to be awarded this fellowship,” Knowles said. “I knew the award would be competitive since a few of my colleagues from other departments were also nominated.”

Selections were made by representatives from the Black Alumni Society and Graduate School. Knowles and the two other fellows will receive a stipend of $1,500. 

Knowles, who was born and raised in the Bahamas, is a member of CCEE’s Coastal and Computational Hydraulics Team. His research involves using a system of computer programs called ADCIRC to investigate all the relevant physics that contribute to total water levels.

Knowles serves as treasurer of the Coasts, Oceans, Ports and Rivers Institute  (COPRI) Student Chapter at NC State and is a member of the Black Graduate Student Association (BGSA). He also works as a community volunteer at Raleigh-based outreach organization With Love from Jesus. 

Knowles also led an effort to provide free tutoring sessions through his Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honors Society (TBP) chapter during his time as an undergraduate at South Dakota State University.  

“Currently, I am tutoring students online, but I am building an online platform to help high school students, mainly seniors, with tutoring for math, sciences and writing with a colleague from the Bahamas,” Knowles said.