Draper Hosts Minority Scholarship Winners for Tour

March 13, 2012 - PRLog -- CAMBRIDGE, MA – Draper hosted two MIT undergraduates on Feb. 7 to present them with scholarships and show them a variety of the technology programs underway at the Laboratory.

Morris Vanegas and Philip Daniel won $500 scholarships through MIT’s Office of Minority Education Industrial Advisory Council for Minority Education (IACME), which is intended to ensure greater retention and boost academic achievement of minority students at MIT. Vanegas is a senior, majoring in aeronautical and astronautical engineering; Daniel is a junior, majoring in mechanical engineering.


The two students met with Darryl Sargent, Draper vice president for programs, as well as Draper engineers Valerie Avila and Sunyung Lim, who discussed career opportunities at not-for-profit labs like Draper.


Draper engineers showed Vanegas and Daniel projects including Talaris, a prototype spacecraft that could explore other planets by landing and then hopping to various areas. Vanegas and Daniel also visited Draper’s rapid prototyping and lunar landing simulation labs.

“Draper’s mission to promote advanced technical education takes many forms,” said Stephan Kolitz, Draper’s director of education. “Our interaction with Morris and Philip is intended to recognize high-achieving undergraduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, to expose them to the breadth of opportunities awaiting them after graduation, and to encourage them to continue exploring their passion in engineering. We hope that activities like this will encourage Morris and Philip – and other undergraduates – to continue their STEM education and to enter the nation’s high-tech workforce after graduation.”

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Draper Laboratory is a not-for-profit, engineering research and development organization dedicated to solving critical national problems in national security, space systems, biomedical systems, and energy.