Johns Hopkins and Morgan State universities have embarked on a new collaborative educational program designed to combine the strengths of both institutions to benefit their students and faculty members, as well as the fields of science and engineering.
The Extreme Science Internships program will build a bridge between talented science and engineering students at Morgan State and faculty and researchers at the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute, or HEMI—where researchers work to advance the fundamental science associated with materials and structures under extreme conditions, such as high-velocity impact—as well as other universities, laboratories, and research institutes in nine states and Germany.
The partnership was announced at Morgan's Center for the Built Environment and Infrastructure Studies, where Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels and Morgan State University President David Wilson signed an agreement formalizing the program.
The five-year, $500,000 internship program will give select Morgan State undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to spend eight to 15 weeks working with top-level researchers and scholars at HEMI and 14 other institutions that are part of the Materials in Extreme Dynamic Environments Collaborative Research Alliance. The funding, provided by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory through HEMI as part of the alliance, also supports several students working in internships at Morgan State in preparation for external internships next summer.
The program's first eight students are beginning work this summer—three at Johns Hopkins, two at the California Institute of Technology, and one each at Drexel University, the Southwest Research Institute, and the Ernst Mach Institut in Germany. The interns will work on projects involving computational mechanics, high-energy density physics, molecular dynamics, computational sciences, multiscale materials research, and more.
K.T. Ramesh, director of HEMI, considers the program a "major investment" in the future.
"Scientists understand the world; engineers change it. Our aim is to educate the people who will change our world," Ramesh says. "Just as important, Johns Hopkins and Morgan both are dedicated to engaging with and supporting Baltimore City and the state, and this program presents a concrete example of that commitment."
