Science and Engineering Scholarships and Fellowships Blog

ASEE administers the Science, Mathematics, And Research for Transformation Defense Scholarship for Service Program (SMART) for DoD (and runs this blog). While in school participants receive a starting salary/stipend ranging from $22,500 for undergraduates to $38,000 for doctoral students and tuition and related education fees are paid. The program also includes summer internships and work at a DoD lab upon graduation (one year for each year receiving benefits as a student).

Navy Keeps Technical Workforce Savvy via SMART Program

Working full time for Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City (NSWC PC), mechanical engineer Rob Cole was taking online courses with Virginia Tech and wondering if there was a faster way to obtain his master’s degree in Ocean Engineering. He found the application to achieve his objective was simply to — get SMART. “I had been doing one online class per semester and started feeling like I really just needed to go back to school full time — maybe do a little research on the side,” Cole said, but adding he wondered how he would do this, keep his job, and pay for the education.

Cole said his answers came when a basewide e-mail about SMART was disseminated. “I read through it and thought,’Man, this is how I’m going to pay for my graduate degree,.” Cole said. “The SMART Program was established to recruit and retain civilian scientists and engineers throughout DoD agencies and laboratories,” said Ed Linsenmeyer, NSWC PC scientist and coordinator for the SMART Program, adding that SMART was open to college students at the undergraduate junior-level or above.

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