Avidyne has announced the 2009 recipients of the Avidyne Graduate Fellowships at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (MIT AeroAstro) in Cambridge, MA. The Avidyne Graduate Fellowships were established in 2008 by MIT alumnus and Avidyne President Dan Schwinn.

The Avidyne Graduate Fellowship recipients are Abhizna (Abhi) Butchibabu, a recent graduate of Georgia Institute of Technology and a private pilot, and Diana Siegel from the University of Queensland, who has also worked as an avionics Development and Systems Engineer at EADS and Luftansa-Technik in Munich, Germany.

"Avidyne is pleased see MIT present these two fine candidates with two year graduate fellowships to further their aerospace educational endeavors," said Schwinn. "Our goal is to attract and inspire the best and brightest students toward careers in aerospace, and we are proud to participate in the growth of this program."

MIT AeroAstro Department Head, Professor Ian Waitz said "These Avidyne Graduate Fellowships have enabled us to attract and support two exceptional students. We look forward to having these students start at MIT in the fall, and to a strong Avidyne-MIT relationship. We are grateful to Dan Schwinn for this very significant contribution to support students who we expect will be future aerospace leaders."

The Avidyne Fellowship awards are estimated to be worth up to $60,000 per year to each recipient. Recipients also have first consideration to be hired by Avidyne for a limited number of paid summer internships during school, and for permanent positions upon graduation. Recipients were chosen by the faculty of the MIT Aero/Astro Department as part of their graduate admissions process.

MIT AeroAstro prepares engineers for success and leadership in the conception, design, implementation, and operation of aerospace and related engineering systems. This is achieved through a commitment to educational excellence, and to the creation, development, and application of technologies critical aerospace engineering, and the architecting and engineering of complex high-performance systems.

AeroAstro has a tradition of strong scholarship and solving "industrial-strength" problems. Its reach extends to high levels of policy and practice. The AeroAstro community includes a former space shuttle astronaut, a former secretary of the Air Force, two former NASA associate administrators, three former Air Force chief scientists, 14 members of the National Academy of Engineering and 15 Fellows of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

FMI: www.avidyne.com