BLACKSBURG, Va., May 25, 2005 – Aerojet, through funding provided by the GenCorp Foundation, has awarded graduate research fellowships to two students in Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering. The recipients, Elizabeth Jeffers and Ryan Throckmorton, will also participate in an internship program next summer at Aerojet Corporation in Gainesville, Va.
Jeffers, a materials science engineer from Rockville, Md., will be conducting research on the development of new energetic materials for structural applications; specifically towards characterizing the role of processing parameters on reactivity of a series of metallic/ceramic blends. Stephen Kampe, professor of material science and engineering, will be supervising Jeffers’ work.
Throckmorton, an aerospace engineer from Winchester, Va., will be performing experimental studies using the Virginia Tech supersonic / hypersonic wind tunnel for evaluating innovative injector configurations to improve mixing in the combustion chamber of scramjet vehicles. Throckmorton will be working with Joseph Schetz, professor of aerospace and ocean engineering.
Aerojet, a Gencorp Inc. company, is a world-recognized aerospace and defense leader principally serving the missile and space propulsion, and defense and armaments markets. GenCorp is a technology-based manufacturer with leading positions in the aerospace, defense, and pharmaceutical fine chemical industries. Both students have been funded by Aerojet through the Center for Turbomachinery and Propulsion Research.
The College of Engineering at Virginia Tech is internationally recognized for its excellence in 14 engineering disciplines and computer science. The college’s 5,600 undergraduates benefit from an innovative curriculum that provides a “hands-on, minds-on” approach to engineering education, complementing classroom instruction with two unique design-and-build facilities and a strong Cooperative Education Program. With more than 50 research centers and numerous laboratories, the college offers its 2,000 graduate students opportunities in advanced fields of study such as biomedical engineering, state-of-the-art microelectronics, and nanotechnology.