Director of Research and Engineering Anita Jones today announced plans to make
238 awards at 96 academic institutions to support graduate student training in
science and engineering fields important to national defense. Subject to the
successful completion of negotiations between the Department of Defense and the
academic institutions, the awards will provide three years of support to 263
students pursuing advanced degrees. Awards are expected to average $126,000
for the three years of support.
The awards are being made under the Augmentation Awards for Science and
Engineering Research Training program. AASERT awards are made to professors
who perform research under DoD contracts or grants, and who compete for
additional AASERT funding. AASERT awards enable each professor to award
graduate research traineeships to one or two U.S. citizens. Each traineeship
supports tuition, living expenses, and research expenses (materials, shop
services, computer time, etc.) connected with the graduate student's thesis
research.
In addition to supporting graduate students, the AASERT awards will involve
more than 65 undergraduate students in DoD-
sponsored
university research. That involvement is designed to stimulate interest in
advanced science or engineering studies.
Today's announcement is the result of a merit competition for AASERT funding
conducted by the Army Research Office, Office of Naval Research, Air Force
Office of Scientific Research, Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the
Science and Technology Directorate of the Ballistic Missile Defense
Organization. Those DoD research offices solicited AASERT proposals from
university researchers currently performing DoD research and invited
researchers without current DoD support to submit proposals for both DoD
research funding and AASERT augmentation. The research offices received nearly
1,300 proposals requesting more than $200 million in support for research
training.
Winning proposers are attached.
