Two Penn Staters chosen for National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG)

Tuesday, May 2, 2006

University Park, Pa. -- Two Penn State students are among an elite group of scholars in the nation to garner a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG), which is offered to students that "demonstrate ability and special aptitude for training in science and engineering." The Department of Defense awards graduate fellowships as a means of increasing the number of U.S. citizens and nationals trained in science and engineering disciplines of military importance.

Penn State's Samantha Edd of Monroeville, Pa., a senior majoring in mechanical engineering, and Thomas Essinger-Hileman of Masontown, Pa., a Penn State graduate with a B.S. in physics, mathematics and philosophy, have been selected to receive this honor.

The fellowship supports students that will seek a doctoral degree by granting them a three-year grant toward graduate study. Edd will attend Stanford University to pursue a graduate degree with research in fluid dynamics, and she says that her future research will most likely focus on simulations of reentry into the earth's atmosphere.

Essinger-Hileman will attend Princeton University in September and plans to work in experimental atomic physics. Particularly, he says he plans to make the most sensitive magnetometers in the world and use them to look for new physics.

During her time at Penn State, Edd has researched the computational aspects of left ventricular assist devices in the Penn State Artificial Heart Lab. Prior to garnering the NDSEG fellowship, Edd received multiple scholarships through Penn State, the most recognizable being the Academic Excellence Scholarship through the Schreyer Honors College and the Paul Morrow Endowed Scholarship through the College of Engineering.

Edd set up a meeting at The University Fellowships Office to gain information on available scholarships.

"Before this meeting, the only national fellowship I knew of was the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship," said Edd. "Dr. Cunning [director of The University Fellowships Office] informed me of several other national fellowships, one of which was the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate fellowship."

In five years, Edd hopes to have earned her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and to have found a full-time research position. Her long-term goals include conducting computational fluid dynamics research in industry or at a national laboratory.

Essinger-Hileman has spent a summer at the California Institute of Technology working with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and another summer in Hamburg, Germany, at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Germany's premier particle accelerator.

He has been a major contributor to Habitat for Humanity, as well as a participant in group sports such as soccer, basketball, racquetball, and individual sports such as karate, running, cycling, sailing, hiking, and hang gliding. Essinger-Hileman says that he's proud of his ability to have balanced the heavy workload of three majors while remaining physically active and, especially, while being able to help out in the community.

Essinger-Hileman has been recognized with the Paul Axt Prize from the Schreyer Honors College and a Society of Distinguished Alumni Scholarship. He also graduated first in his class in physics and was runner-up in the Phi Beta Kappa Thesis competition.

Story by Victoria Townsend, undergraduate intern in the University Fellowships Office.

From Penn State Live  located at http://live.psu.edu/