Three UD graduate students received the Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship from the Department of Defense. It provides full tuition, a cash award and employment placement after graduation.
Growing up in Medellin, Colombia, Cristina Fernandez loved to collect rocks. The master's student in geological sciences is set to graduate in spring 2012 and then will begin work as a scientist with the Army Geospatial Center in Alexandria, Va. Joining the center's Hydrologic and Environmental Analysis branch, Fernandez will help supply water resource and geospatial information to the Army and Department of Defense.
The placement not only utilizes her geology skills, it also complements her six-year experience as a sergeant in the Army. Having been deployed to Kuwait in 2004–2005, she said she can identify with the troops she'll be supporting.
Matthew Puterio already has considerable experience working at his SMART placement facility, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, R.I., first as a high schooler building a miniature submarine at the facility's summer camp, and then as a warfare center intern during winter and summer breaks since his freshman year. The computer engineering major from Kingston, R.I., said he hopes to get involved with software development as his career progresses.
Joseph Senne, a doctoral student in UD's Physical Ocean Science and Engineering Program, studies how water waves and bubbles on the ocean's surface affect sound waves moving through the sub-surface. The Mobile, Ala., native works at the Ocean Acoustics Laboratory, where understanding the physics of acoustics and surface water-wave interactions is leading to improved underwater communication systems for unmanned research vehicles. After graduating in January 2012, he will head to the Naval Oceanographic Office at Stennis Space Center in south Mississippi.