SMART Scholar

Minh Tram, a computer science doctoral student, received a prestigious Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) scholarship from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

"This is an amazing opportunity, and I'm not going to take it for granted," Tram says. "There aren't many chances for an academic to get involved with this type of program, and depending on where I'm needed, I may gain access to things that I'd never know about in the civilian world."

His research focuses on creating novel augmented and virtual reality capabilities for human-robot interaction. While working in the Robotic Vision Lab, he uses simulation software to observe and train humans and robots to perform work more intuitively and alleviate the amount of processing necessary to do a task. Such research has the potential to make autonomous robots require less oversight and maintenance.

SMART scholarship recipients earn full tuition, an annual stipend, and a book and health allowance, which allows them to focus on complex research to further the DoD's mission and create a lasting impact. ₪