Gavin Latham, a Materials Science & Engineering doctoral student under the supervision of Xiuling Li, has been awarded a scholarship the Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship-for-Service Program. The SMART Scholarship-for-Service Program provides scholarship recipients with full tuition, annual stipends, summer internships, and civilian employment in a DoD facility after graduation.
The SMART program pairs students with a facility under a sponsoring service, where the student will also intern during the summer. They are also paired with experienced scientists, engineers, or researchers at their sponsoring facilities to provide educational and professional guidance. After graduation, SMART scholarship recipients are guarenteed employment. The merit-based scholarship is for students persuing STEM degrees at the bachelor's, master's, and doctoral levels. There are currently over 150 sponsoring facilities that award recipients can work with and are matched based on both the student's education and goals and the facility's mission and objectives.
Since the program's inception in 2005, the University of Texas at Austin has only had 30 SMART scholarship awardees, with the last from 2024. In the past few years, Materials Science and Engineering students have made up 2% or less of the incoming SMART Scholars. Latham is a member of Dr. Li's group, which focuses on semiconductor materials and devices.
