Mechanical Engineering graduate student Melissa C. Lott has been selected to receive a prestigious, two-year paid government fellowship through the Presidential Management Fellows Program (PMF).
Lott, a dual-degree graduate student in the Cockrell School of Engineering and LBJ School of Public Affairs, was one of only 850 applicants from around the world (all American citizens) to be selected for the program. Of these finalists, only four are engineers and 10 are students from The University of Texas at Austin. In total, more than 9,100 students applied.
The program was established in 1977 under President Jimmy Carter as a way to bring recent advanced degree graduates into the federal government, preparing them to be future leaders. Individuals are only eligible to apply to the program in the year that they complete a graduate degree (in any field, from law to engineering). The application process runs from October to February, with four separate rounds: application by individual, official nomination from a university, online assessment tests and in-person interviews.
This month, Lott will travel to Washington, D.C. to speak with several organizations within the federal government, including the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Department of the Interior. The goal of these discussions is to determine Lott’s official job placement as a program fellow.
Lott said she decided to apply to the PMF program after working with several fellows in Washington D.C., where she interned at the Department of Energy in summer 2009 and the White House Council on Environmental Quality in fall 2009. She is supervised by Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Michael Webber and is a member of Webber Energy Group.
Other University of Texas students selected are:
|
Name |
Department |
|
Abigail Arons |
Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs |
|
Julia Burch |
School of Law |
|
Robert Debelak |
School of Law |
|
Sarah Mahin |
Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs |
|
Heather Nice |
School of Information |
|
Pace Phillips |
Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs |
|
Jennifer Schmalz |
Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs |
|
Christopher Smith |
Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs |
|
Jenilee Webb |
School of Architechture |
Lott hopes that through her PMF rotations she will be able to cultivate her skills and apply her technical knowledge to the policy-making process. She believes more engineers and scientists need to become involved in the policy arena. She expects to move to Washington, D.C. at the end of 2011 to begin her fellowship.
Read a Q&A with Lott about how the Lone Star State is fast becoming the "Green Star State."
