Two engineering seniors will be recognized at center court at the Vanderbilt men’s basketball game with Georgia Feb. 27 and receive oversized checks representing a $500 United States Air Force scholarship for each.
Electrical engineering senior John Lantz and computer engineering senior Nikhil Goel are the scholarship recipients. Lantz and Goel were featured on Memorial Gymnasium’s Jumbotron. Lantz was featured Feb. 2 during the Alabama game; Goel was featured Feb. 16 during the Texas A&M game.
Engineering education, especially electrical engineering and computer engineering, is of significant interest to the Air Force, said Technical Sergeant Bryan C. Sweetman. “The Air Force is always looking for ways to recognize the best and the brightest.
“This is a way we can partner with Vanderbilt and recognize two of your top engineers. This [scholarship] program always has had a major emphasis from our Command,” Sweetman said.
Lantz, from Denver, Colo., is president of Eta Kappa Nu, the electrical and computer engineering honor society, and has taught computer science in a summer pre-college engineering program at Vanderbilt. He is an undergraduate researcher in Professor Sharon Weiss’ photonics group working on a new composite material system by combining nanoparticles of silicon and nickel oxide and then measuring the electrical properties of the composite material. After graduation he will join Royal Bank of Scotland as a trader.
Nikhil Goel, from Huntsville, Ala., is a double major in computer engineering and economics. As a summer 2012 intern, Goel served as an Associate Product Manager at Google in Mountain View, Calif. He also has founded two web-based startup companies. His previous engineering internship experiences include Microsoft, SAIC, and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. He will be working as a consultant with McKinsey & Company after graduation. On campus he is a head resident advisor, an admissions tour guide, and social chair of his fraternity.
The USAF has partnered with IMG College to sponsor both Vanderbilt football and basketball. “The Air Force Recruiting Service has chosen to use their IMG media assets at high profile Vanderbilt sporting events to recognize the School of Engineering’s top students, said Jane DeWitt, Vanderbilt IMG Sports Marketing.