Contact: Phil Hearn
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A talented Mississippi State graduate student in mechanical engineering is receiving a 2006-07 Mississippi Space Grant Consortium fellowship worth $17,500.
The award went to Justin M. Crapps of Florence, Ala., a graduate research assistant at the university's Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems. Last May, he received a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, magna cum laude, from MSU's Bagley College of Engineering.
"Justin is an impressive young man and I'm glad to have him as a graduate student," said Mark Horstemeyer, who holds a CAVS endowed professorship in solid mechanics. "He continually wins awards reflecting his elite capabilities for research and community service."
The MSCG fellowship provides financial assistance for both educational and living expenses during the academic year. Crapps currently is working on a master's in mechanical engineering, which he will follow immediately with work toward a doctorate.
Consortium fellows are selected on the basis of proven academic and research abilities, as well as the potential to make a difference in K-12 classrooms. During his fellowship, Crapps will serve weekly as a resource to a local school teacher.
"I am very honored to be selected for the fellowship; but more than anything, I am thrilled at the opportunity to be a resource to a K-12 teacher," said Crapps, who also was a 2005-06 silver medalist in the national Charles T. Main Award Competition of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
"I would have been thrilled to have had an engineer come and teach me how to use science while I was in high school," he added. "I expect to make a large impact encouraging students to develop their minds and pursue scientific fields as their career."
Recently, Crapps helped Starkville Academy eighth-grader Jordan Keasler win second place in a school science fair, then take first place at both the district fair in Columbus and state science fair at MSU. The pair worked on a project to research and demonstrate how regenerative braking enables energy recovery in a hybrid electric vehicle.
"We worked almost every Saturday morning from the middle of November until the end of February," Crapps said of the effort. "Not once was Jordan tired of learning or of working."
During his undergraduate studies, Crapps was a President's List Scholar and University Honors Program participant. The son of Kerwin and Donna Crapps, he also served as Ingersoll-Rand coordinator for the student chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
The chapter finished third nationally last year in ASME's annual Ingersoll-Rand Inter-Regional awards competition, which recognizes outstanding activities and leadership. It was the MSU group's first national award.
Also as an undergraduate, Crapps was general business manager for the Challenge X team, a campus group seeking to design an alternative-powered vehicle as part of a national, three-year competition featuring teams from 17 universities.
The nonprofit Mississippi Space Grant Consortium was established in 1991 through the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A network of higher learning institutions, its mission is to help Mississippians understand and participate in NASA's aeronautics and space programs. To that end, the organization works to support and enhance science, mathematics, engineering and technology education, research and outreach programs.
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For more information, contact Courtney Thompson at (662) 325-0151 or cthompson@engr.msstate.edu.