Representatives from Sandia National Laboratories, the largest federal laboratory in the United States, and senior MIT faculty were at the Institute Oct. 18 to honor MIT's first Sandia Fellow in Engineering Systems. The recipient, Scott Johnson, is a first-year graduate student in civil and environmental engineering in Professor John Williams' group.
The fellowship will support education and development of technical professionals with expertise in science and technology. It is part of a wider Sandia sponsorship program at major US universities.
Johnson, a graduate of Washington University, will focus on modeling complex interactions in granular media and two phase systems, with an emphasis on advanced numerical methods for direct simulation.
"We are extremely grateful to Sandia for this fellowship support," said Professor Daniel Roos, associate dean for engineering systems and director of the Engineering Systems Division. "It serves as an important first step in developing new, mutually beneficial educational and research initiatives between Sandia and ESD."
"Sandia has an approach we call 'science with the mission in mind,'" said Ron Stoltz, one of the Sandia executives responsible for relations with MIT. "A technical education that combines science and engineering fundamentals with lifelong learning, like that offered at ESD and MIT, is exactly what's needed at Sandia." Also representing the lab were Don Cook and alumnus Ben Cook (Sc.D. 2001).
Sandia does basic and applied research in physical sciences, biology and information science and has engineering programs in defense, energy and the environment. Its homeland defense research includes intelligence technologies, hardening of buildings and key public assets, cybersecurity and multispectrum sensor technologies.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on October 24, 2001.
