A record number of University of Colorado Boulder students have received a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, which recognizes outstanding graduate students in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.

Thirty CU-Boulder students were among the 2,000 fellowship winners announced by NSF earlier this month—the greatest number of fellows from any school in Colorado. Last year, 21 current CU-Boulder students won fellowships, setting the previous record. Twenty current students were awarded fellowships in 2012.

NSF fellows receive three years of support from the agency, including a $32,000 annual stipend, a $12,000 cost-of-education allowance to the institution, international research and professional development opportunities, and access to a supercomputer.

“We are delighted that the number of CU-Boulder students who receive these sought-after fellowships is continuing to rise,” said Stein Sture, vice chancellor for research. “It reflects the success of our continued efforts to attract the best and brightest students to CU-Boulder for their graduate studies.”

The students awarded graduate research fellowships nationally this year come from all states and the District of Columbia, as well as commonwealths and territories of the United States. The national winners also are a diverse group of individuals. Among the 2,000 awardees, 1,069 are women, 382 are from underrepresented minority groups, 55 are persons with disabilities and 37 are veterans.

CU-Boulder’s winners are studying a diverse group of scientific disciplines, including aerospace engineering, geochemistry, geology, atomic physics, paleoclimatology, oceanography, cell biology, geography, ecology and sociology, among other fields.

“We can recruit so many talented individuals because we have such good programs and such outstanding faculty,” said John Stevenson, dean of CU-Boulder’s Graduate School. “Boulder continues to be a destination of choice for the intellectual leaders of the future.”