Two Georgia Tech undergraduate students, Ryan Rodriguez and Matthew Fernandez, are among 71 students nationally who have been awarded scholarships for the 2024-2025 academic year by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.
This prestigious fellowship, initiated 40 years ago by the Mercury-7 astronauts, provides up to $15,000 for college expenses, a paid trip to the ASF Innovator's Weekend, and a lifelong network with astronauts and ASF alumni and supporters. The scholarship is awarded annually to outstanding undergraduates who intend to pursue research-oriented careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
RODRIGUEZ, Industrial Engineering 2025, is interested in the development of large-scale transportation systems. He has developed a traffic congestion estimation tool to predict demand for On-Demand Multimodal Transit Systems (ODMTS) services.
After completing his BS, Rodriguez intends to pursue a PhD studying transportation network design or designing optimized, large-scale transportation networks like bus systems or shuttle routes, particularly ODMTS to address the infamous first/last mile problem.
Rodriguez was earlier the recipient of an OMED Challenge Scholarship.
FERNANDEZ, Mechanical Engineering 2025, is also a recipient of the Godbold and Provosts Scholarships. He is minoring in robotics and has worked on developing compliant limbless systems to create a robot with efficient underwater locomotion techniques.
Fernandez is excited to join the cohort of Astronaut Scholars who are making important contributions through their research. He plans to pursue a PhD in Robotics after graduating from Georgia Tech and aims to use bio-inspired robotics to enable multi-modal locomotion and the navigation of previously untouched environments.
"This award is a testament to the hard work and dedication of both Ryan and Matthew in their respective fields. We are extremely proud of their achievements and to have them represent Georgia Tech to the Astronaut Scholarship community," said Karen E. Mura, Prestigious Fellowships Advisor in the Office of Undergraduate Education.
Prestigious Fellowships Advising is available to Georgia Tech students and alumni who want to apply for undergraduate and post-graduate awards. For more information about Fellowships, contact Shannon Dobranski at shannon.dobranski@gatech.edu.