During the month of July, MSEE URA professor Ryan Hurley (Johns Hopkins University) hosted two Cadets from the United States Military Academy at West Point for research internships.  CDT Samuel Budoff and CDT Aiden Looney spent a few weeks in Prof. Hurley’s lab under the mentorship of graduate student Brett Kuwik, a member of the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

The cadets were exposed to the research being completed in Research Area 1: Focus Area 2, Materials Constitutive Models.  Their focus was to characterize particle breakage, stress, and porosity in sand and sandstone across various strain rates.  While at JHU, the cadets were exposed to the triaxial drop tower and Kolsky bar facilities.

“The MSEE program was one of my first introductions to academic research at the university level. It provided me with many opportunities to learn about mechanical testing and data processing in a field I was formerly unfamiliar with,” says CDT Looney. “I also developed newfound appreciation for material science as I was finally able to connect it with the goals of the Department of Defense as a whole, and I gained an understanding of how universities collaborate to form a research society, working together to solve large problems.”

At the culmination of the summer internship, Lieutenant Colonel Nick Duncan, the Director of the Nuclear Science and Engineering Research Center (NSERC), visited the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus to learn more about MSEE’s research and focus areas, tour some of the facilities, and get briefed by the cadets on their experience. NSERC partners the Defense Threat Reduction Agency with the Department of Defense degree-granting institutions to conduct countering weapons of mass destruction (CWMD) research and train the next generation of military officers with CWMD experience.  MSEE looks forward to continuing this collaboration with NSERC in support of DTRA’s mission and the training of the next generation workforce.