For release: April 29, 2013
News and Media Relations contact: Randy Weiler, 615-898-5616 or Randy.Weiler@mtsu.edu
University Honors
College contact: Laura Clippard, 615-898-5464 or
Laura.Clippard@mtsu.ed
MURFREESBORO — Call
it fate, destiny or good fortune. All of it has led an MTSU Honors College
senior to receive a prestigious German fellowship.
Brett Bornhoft of Lee’s Summit, Mo., earned the Deutscher
Akademischer Austausch Dienst Research Internships in Science and Engineering
fellowship to serve a 12-week internship at Universität des Saarlandes in
Saarbrücken, Germany, this summer.
The fellowship known as DAAD RISE is a summer internship
program for undergraduate students from the United States, Canada and the
United Kingdom in the fields of biology, chemistry, physics, earth sciences and
engineering. It offers unique opportunities for undergraduate students to work
with research groups at universities and top research institutions across
Germany for two to three months in the summer.
“I feel really blessed. This is really incredible,” said
Bornhoft, who is an aerospace major with minors in mathematics, engineering
technology and physics. “This could lead to opportunities to get accepted at
higher-level graduate studies at schools like MIT.”
Fresh out of Lee’s Summit High School in 2009, Bornhoft
moved to Nashville and considered studying music business at either MTSU or
Belmont University, and to be part of a church plant with Lifehouse Church.
Music was part of his fiber. He had sung in a choir since age 7, he was a
percussionist and played in Lee’s Summit’s marching band. He was in a band
offered a record deal and he played drums for a female solo artist.
Even with a scholarship, his Belmont tuition was going to be
$30,000 a year. He established his Tennessee residency, enrolling at MTSU’s
aerospace engineering technology program in fall 2010.
“I was not in (to college) yet,” Bornhoft said of the
freshman year adjustment and struggle to find his niche.
Bornhoft loved mathematics and took a sophomore year,
calculus-based physics class taught by Dr. Vic Montemayor.
“That class threw me a loop,” Bornhoft said. “It got me all
pumped up. It was really hard, but it led to lots of stuff.”
“Stuff” included MTSU’s new Unmanned Aerial Systems program
that began in the spring 2011.
“I worked with them from the start,” Bornhoft said. “That
led me to research. It clicked. I got it — a clear understanding of it all. And
it was interesting.”
In the fellowship, Bornhoft will be matched with German
doctoral student David Kastelan, who will serve as his mentor. This will allow
Bornhoft to participate in advanced research and to gain practical experience
with control theory in multicopters.
As part of the fellowship, Bornhoft will travel to Munich,
Germany, to complete a two-week language course before beginning the
internship.
In addition to the research, Bornhoft said the internship
will provide opportunities for presentation and publication.
The nearly $2,500 scholarship provides a stipend that covers
living expenses, the language course, insurance and spending money. The Honors
College awarded a $1,000 scholarship for his travel expenses.
“The DAAD RISE program is one of the most prestigious
internships that an undergraduate science student can obtain,” Honors College
Dean John Vile said. “MTSU students are increasingly securing major national
and international honors, and it is heartening to see yet another Honors
student join this elite group.”
Bornhoft’s wife, Kellie, a sculptor who attends Watkins
School of Art and Design in Nashville, will travel to Germany with him and will
participate in an art show in Magdeburg. They will collaborate on one of her
projects.
At MTSU, Bornhoft has worked as a research assistant for the
Center for Unmanned Systems Operational Advancement and Research, also known as
CUSOAR@MT, from April 2011 through February 2012 and as a research engineer
from January to June 2012 for MTSU’s Fifth Generation Aerial Target Drone
program under the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Since June 2012, he has worked as a research engineer for
MTSU’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems program. He has served as president of the MT
Unmanned Aircraft System Club.
Bornhoft, scheduled to graduate from MTSU in 2014, plans to
pursue a Ph.D. He said his dream is to attend MIT, a private research
university in Cambridge, Mass.
Bornhoft said his MTSU academic experience also he was very
influenced by aerospace professor Nate Callender and physics and astronomy
professor Dr. Eric Klumpe, who wrote Bornhoft’s DAAD RISE letter of
recommendation.
Bornhoft is the son of Mark and Linda Bornhoft of Lee’s
Summit.
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