Life at OSU

Engineering researcher will visit Finland under Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award

Karl Haapala, associate professor and Tom and Carmen West Faculty Scholar at in the OSU College of Engineering, has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award to Finland in manufacturing engineering,  the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board have announced. 

Haapala will conduct research and teach at Tampere University as part of a project to investigate metamodeling techniques to improve the sustainability performance of additive manufacturing.

Haapala is one of more than 800 U.S. citizens who will teach, conduct research, and/or provide expertise abroad for the 2019-20 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as record of service and demonstrated leadership in their respective fields.

The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program and is designed to build lasting connections between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.  The program is funded through an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State.  Participating governments and host institutions, corporations and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program, which operates in more than 160 countries worldwide.

Since being established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the program has given more than 390,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists and professionals of all backgrounds and fields the opportunity to study, teach, conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in many fields, including 59 who have been awarded a Nobel Prize and 84 who have received a Pulitzer Prize.

Two from OSU among 12 to receive prestigious fellowship

Two Ph.D. students from Oregon State University are among 12 from around the United States to receive INL Graduate Fellowships from the Idaho National Laboratory.

OSU’s honorees are Phylicia Cicilio and Ryan Stewart from the College of Engineering. Cicilio studies electrical and computer engineering, and Stewart studies nuclear engineering and radiation physics.

Recipients of INL fellowships have their tuition and fees covered by their university during their first three years of graduate school; their tuition and fees plus a $60,000 annual salary are paid by the INL during the last two years of their program while they conduct research at the lab. 

Throughout the program, the graduate fellows will interact and collaborate with both their INL mentor and their university thesis adviser.

The program allows the INL to integrate students into the laboratory and provides graduate fellows with work on significant projects that will help them fulfill their thesis research requirements. The INL gains access to skilled staff, along with the opportunity to build long-term collaborations with universities, increase recruiting opportunities and interact with a continuous pipeline of students interning and conducting research at the lab.

“INL graduate fellowships offer huge opportunities for everyone involved,” said Michelle Thiel Bingham, the INL’s university partnerships director. “Universities gain a window into INL research, students are provided an amazing research experience while pursuing their education, and INL researchers get fresh perspectives from the graduate fellows. The end result is the laboratory strengthens its partnerships with universities while continuing to develop the next generation.”

Graduate fellows were selected in degree fields that closely tie in with the INL’s three mission areas: innovative nuclear energy solutions, other clean energy options and critical infrastructure.

The Idaho National Laboratory performs work in each of the Department of Energy’s strategic goal areas: energy, national security, science and environment.

Students from Duke, MIT, the University of Florida, Texas A&M, the University of Utah, the University of Idaho, and Boise State will join Cicilio and Stewart in their fellowship cohort.