ECE/IREAP Grad Student Awarded AFCEA Scholarship

Jonathan Neumann, an Electrical and Computer Engineering graduate student working at the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics (IREAP), has been awarded a scholarship from the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA). Neumann is working under the direction of his advisor, Prof. Patrick G. O'Shea.

Admiral Paul Tobin, USN, ret., presented the check for $ 3,000 to Neumann at a ceremony held at IREAP on May 8. Neumann was selected to receive the Ralph W. Shrader Master's Degree Scholarship from AFCEA, an award given in recognition of demonstrated effort at the master's level of study. This award is among the $750,000 in educational assistance that AFCEA awards each year.

Adm. Tobin presented Neumann with the award for his research on free electron lasers, work which Tobin described as being "right out there on the cutting edge of research that will be important for all of us."

Following the presentation, Adm. Tobin was given a tour of the University of Maryland Electron Ring (UMER) and free-electron laser lab where Neumann has done much of his research. The tour, however, was a necessarily brief one: Neumann, a lieutenant in the Civil Air Patrol, College Park Squadron, Maryland Wing, had to leave to join his unit, which had been called out on a Search and Rescue mission just minutes before the presentation ceremony.

Published May 1, 2002