BETHPAGE, N.Y., June 17, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) has selected five East Coast students to receive its 2009 Battle Management and Engagement Systems division engineering scholarships.
This is the fourth year for the competition. For the first time, the competition was expanded from Long Island, where the Battle Management and Engagement Systems Division is headquartered, to Brevard County, Florida, and Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's counties in Maryland - areas in which of the company's Aerospace Systems sector has major facilities.
This year's scholars are: * Elizabeth D'Arienzo - East Meadow H.S., East Meadow, N.Y. * Ryan F. Fleming - St Mary's Ryken H.S., Leonardtown, Md. * Michael P. Lee - Eau Gallie H.S., Melbourne, Fla. * James Troise - Half Hollows Hills H.S East., Dix Hills, N.Y. * Charles P. Vasko - Huntingtown H.S., Huntingtown, Md.
"Our hope with this scholarship program has always been to help stimulate interest in the sciences and technology in general, and in the aerospace technologies in particular," said Tom Vice, sector vice president of Battle Management and Engagement Systems division for Northrop Grumman. "It made sense for us to expand the competition to students who lived in the major East Coast states our division calls home."
"That only made our evaluation team's annual challenge - choosing the best of the best applicants - that much harder," said Vice. "Every entrant presented great grades and an impressive list of school and community activities."
Each of the scholarship winners will receive $10,000 towards their four-year college education - $2,500 per year over four years.
In addition, each student will get a paid summer internship at Northrop Grumman's local facility for the three summers of their four-years of undergraduate studies. Including salaries, these scholarships could be worth as much as $30,000.
During their internships, each winner will have the chance to work on real-world research and development projects as members of Northrop Grumman engineering teams. On the job, they will be mentored by accomplished senior engineers while bringing their own, fresh approaches to the projects.
Past winners have made significant contributions to ongoing company projects. One intern-scholar, for example, helped develop a way to use 3-D graphics processing units to perform high-level, complex computations. As part of an engineering team, she enabled a radical reduction in the time it takes to complete such computations. The work has been published and presented at technical symposia.
A 30-member employee evaluation team reviewed the applications. Applicants were evaluated on their scholastic records, community service, letters of recommendation and their interest in the engineering profession. The committee eventually selected nine finalists. Division executives interviewed the finalists and selected the winners.
"I seem to say this every year: Each year's class of winners makes a great impression on us," said Vice. "They not only learn from us, but they also contribute to us and our customers. I'm looking forward to welcoming our fourth group of scholars to Northrop Grumman."
Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global security company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide.