Rachel Odessey, a first-year Ph.D. student in the electrical and computer engineering group in the School of Engineering at Brown University, has won a three-year National Defense Science and Engineering (NDSEG) Graduate Fellowship.
The fellowship is awarded to Odessey in recognition of academic excellence and science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) achievements, from over 3,600 applications received this year. The NDSEG fellowship will cover her full tuition and mandatory fees for three full years, and includes a monthly stipend. In addition, Fellows receive up to two trips per year for training and/or conferences that support their educational initiatives.
Odessey is a 2017 graduate of Scripps College in Claremont, Calif., earning her bachelor of arts in physics. At Brown, she is conducting research under the guidance of thesis adviser Professor Jimmy Xu in his Laboratory for Emerging Technologies. In particular, Odessey is focusing on questions that address intersections of optics, electrical engineering, materials science, and physics. Specifically, she plans to investigate the integration of polymer piezoelectric materials such as 4-N, N-dimethylamino-4'- N'- methyl stilbazolium tosylate (DAST) into optical metamaterials.
"This funding allows me to pursue research independently and devote myself to questions that fascinate me the most and advance important scientific investigations that have the possibility to benefit the human condition," she said. "The development of tunable, scalable metamaterials would open a number of novel and potentially widely useful applications including communications, flexible, wearable sensors, and camouflaging devices. These applications could have an impact in many fields including improved health outcomes, sensing, communications, energy harvesting, and camouflaging for Department of Defense personnel."
The NDSEG Fellowship is sponsored and funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), the Army Research Office (ARO), and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) under the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, OUSD (R&E). Solutions Through Innovative Technologies, Inc. (STI-TEC) administers the NDSEG Fellowship program.