RIT electrical engineering student earns prestigious SMART scholarship after building experience through co-ops and coursework

Rochester, New York – For Aiden Morris, a career supporting the U.S. Department of Defense has been a goal for years. Now, after building experience through college coursework, several co-ops and an international assignment in Japan, the Rochester Institute of Technology student is getting a major opportunity to turn that goal into reality.

Morris, a fourth-year electrical engineering student in RIT’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering, returned to campus in September after spending three months working at HIBOT, an industrial robotics company in Shinagawa, a district of southern Tokyo. Around the same time, he began the fall semester with news that he had been selected for the prestigious Science, Mathematics, and Research Transformation, or SMART, Scholarship-for-Service Program.

The scholarship is designed to help build a highly skilled STEM workforce for the U.S. defense industry. Students attending U.S. universities who receive the award get financial support during their studies and an opportunity to gain practical experience before taking a position with the federal government.

For Morris, the award fits closely with the direction he has been pursuing since before he arrived at RIT.

“I always wanted to go into defense, to be able to support the Army,” said Morris, who is from Clarence, N.Y. “It’s a split between being lucky and also what I’ve been doing. I knew that eventually I would get enough experiences on my resume to be able to apply to a big defense company. I just was extremely lucky to get these opportunities right off the bat.”

His interest in military technology began in high school. Morris was particularly fascinated by different types of military armament, including a new rail gun being developed by the military. The technology caught his attention because of the combination of electronics, physics and electrodynamics involved.

He also had a personal connection to the military. His mother, Kristen, served in the Army Reserve, giving Morris another reason to consider a future working in defense.

As he looked at possible college programs, electrical engineering stood out as a way to develop the technical background he would need. He eventually chose RIT, where his coursework helped prepare him for a series of co-op positions in the electrical industry.

Those experiences gave him a chance to move beyond classroom theory and see how engineering works in real workplaces. One of his co-ops was with MSA Safety in Pennsylvania, where he worked on battery equipment testing. The experience also introduced him to the different parts of building power systems, including wiring, battery capacity and the coordination of electrical networks.

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The combination of academic work and professional experience became important when Morris applied for the SMART Scholarship. His international co-op at HIBOT was another significant part of that journey.

Morris secured the Japan opportunity through the Asia Internship Program, which works with RIT Career Services and Co-op to provide students with international experience. His time at HIBOT allowed him to add work in industrial robotics to an already growing list of engineering experiences.

The SMART Scholarship will provide Morris with a full scholarship and monthly stipends, along with an opportunity to participate in an internship at a selected installation. The program also comes with a service commitment. After graduating, scholarship recipients are employed at their assigned installation for the length of their scholarship.

For Morris, that next step is already clear. Following graduation from RIT, he will work at the U.S. Army DEVCOM Armaments Center at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey.

He learned that he had received the scholarship while he was in class. The news caught him completely by surprise, and he said he was so excited that he nearly jumped out of his seat.

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“This pretty much changed my life,” he said. “They say this opportunity in the defense department is a pretty good gig. Picatinny is such a huge base and there are many opportunities there and around the world.”

Morris’s path to the scholarship has been built through a combination of classroom learning and hands-on work. His co-ops have allowed him to explore different areas of electrical engineering, while his time in Japan gave him experience in an international industrial setting.

Now, with his RIT education nearing completion and a position with the Army ahead of him, Morris is preparing to take the next step toward the career he has been working toward for years. The scholarship gives him not only financial support but also a direct path into the defense workforce, where he will be able to apply the engineering skills he has developed throughout college.