A Missouri University of Science and Technology graduate student was recently awarded a Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship from the United States Department of Defense.
Benjamin Gliha, a graduate student in civil engineering from East Hampton, Conn., will receive full tuition and fees, a stipend of up to $41,000 per year, paid summer internships and a guaranteed job after graduation. He has accepted a position with the Little Rock, Ark., Corps of Engineers, to begin in May 2011.
“Ben is only the third Missouri S&T student to receive this award,” says Gliha’s advisor Dr. Jeffery Volz, assistant professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at Missouri S&T.
“Only 300 students received the award from the nearly 3,000 students who applied for the SMART scholarship this year.”
While working on his master’s degree at Missouri S&T, Gliha helps oversee Volz’s $570,000 research project involving blast resistant concrete for the Army Research Laboratory, funded through the Leonard Wood Institute. This position is typically reserved for Ph.D. students.
“Ben has embraced the project as if it were his,” says Volz. “He has developed testing methodologies, constructed unique testing equipment and offered numerous useful ideas for the project.”