Each spring, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awards graduate research fellowships to promising undergraduate and graduate students around the country. These individuals are anticipated to become knowledge experts in their field and to help advance the nation’s technological infrastructure, national security and economic well-being through their research, teaching and innovations in science and engineering.

In Division I baseball, University of Delaware pitcher Chris Grome is likely one of a kind. Grome already has an aerospace engineering degree and he is the only Division I baseball player to be a part of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission fellowship program. He is, quite literally, a rocket scientist. All his credentials were fueled by a fondness for the cosmos and the universe in his youth, something that has come full circle in his collegiate life.

Anybody attending the University of Delaware Graduate College’s spring 2023 Spark! Symposium who was not aware of the format of the event might have been surprised when Ingrid Havron began her talk on “Understanding Beluga Behavior in an Altering Arctic” by asking everyone to imagine they are 11-year-old Riley from the 2015 Disney/Pixar animated film, Inside Out.