By Gabby Benedict, CEC Student Reporter

Miami University students Allie Filiatraut and Hunter Reeling have recently been selected by the Ohio Space Grant Consortium (OSGC) to be a part of their fellowship program.

The OSGC Fellowship program offers financial support through competitively awarded fellowship opportunities that are given to high-achieving students pursuing a graduate degree in a STEM-related field at an Ohio member university.

Filiatraut is a senior Mechanical Engineering and Paper Science student in Miami’s 4+1 combined Bachelor’s/Master’s program. Some of her current research interests lie in the intersection of computer science and material science, and she is most intrigued by the large role that machine learning algorithms can play to improve the material science field.

Filiatraut first heard about the fellowship opportunity through her advisor, who encouraged her to apply.

“I think starting my undergraduate research early prepared me to present my research in a digestible manner that proved me as a respectable and legitimate researcher. Having already conducted so much research and having presented at a national conference, I believe I stood out as a candidate and proved to OSGC that I am a valid researcher who is doing great work,” Filiatraut said.

Reeling is a senior Mechanical Engineering student in Miami’s 4+1 combined Bachelor’s/Master’s program. Some of his current research interests include working with Andrew Summers on micro-milling and working with Jinjuan She at her Human-Centered Design Lab, mainly focusing on functional analysis and incorporating human-centered design into functional decomposition.

Reeling believes that his undergraduate research experiences at Miami helped put his application above other STEM students.  He also has a publication from this year with several other people titled “Incorporating User Workflow in Requirement Representation Improves Syntax Correctness and Breadth of Functional Decomposition.”

“Dr. Mark Sidebottom is an engineering professor at Miami and was the first person to mention this fellowship to me and has done a lot for me since my first semester; I've had a good relationship with him. He also got me into being a Teacher’s Assistant, which grew into research relationships, which grew into me being in the master's program, which is awesome,” Reeling said.

Additionally, Reeling was hired for an internship this summer with Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Colombia, Maryland.