Opportunities

Scholarships and Prizes

The AMEP Leadership Prize is awarded each year to one or more “Outstanding AMEP student(s) with demonstrated leadership and a solid academic record.” The award includes a prize of $1,000 and was endowed by Dan Koellen, an AMEP alumni.

AMEP students with distinguished academic records may compete for university-wide and national-level scholarships. AMEP students have recently won:

  • Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Scholarships (multiple years)
  • Astronaut Scholarship (2018)
  • Goldwater Scholarships (2016, 2018, 2019)
  • NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2019)

To learn more about such opportunities, you may explore the Scholarships Available to UW-Madison Students.

The Hertz foundation awards very competitive fellowships for students in the physical sciences

Windtunnel testing of Boeing Phantom Works prototype, NASA Langley. Source: NASA
Traveling wave solution in plane Couette flow. Waleffe, Stone, Graham.

Research and Internship Opportunities

As an undergraduate in AMEP you have the opportunity to participate in many undergraduate research activities available at UW-Madison and at other universities.

These undergraduate research opportunities are ongoing, both during the semester and the summer. Talk directly to the professors whom you think you would like to work with. They may have some ongoing activity that you can join, they may want to start a collaboration with you or they can point you toward other opportunities.

You may even receive funding for Undergraduate Research work either directly from the faculty whose research is supported by  an external grant from which they can fund you, or through university sponsored awards such as the Hilldale and Holstrom Fellowships.

Here is an opportunity board that has some research and internship opportunities for undergraduates listed in it. This is not a complete list and we encourage you to search for your own opportunities, but this is a great place to start.

AMEP lab:

The AMEP program sponsors a lab that has opportunities for undergraduate students, check out the lab’s webpage for more information.

Careers

Employment opportunities for AMEP graduates are excellent in industrial research and development programs, especially in the advanced technology industries. Governmental laboratories also have many interesting and challenging opportunities for graduates of this program. The wide variety of fundamental problems encountered in these programs require versatile individuals with a broad background in math, physics, and other scientific disciplines, who have had some experience with engineering analysis and experimental methods. Individuals with this background are able to contribute significantly to programs requiring both scientists and engineers to work together cooperatively toward a common goal.

Students interested in exploring career opportunities should check into Successworks or the Career Exploration Center. Both of these offices are well equipped to help AMEP students explore career options that will make great use of their degree.

Examples of companies and government employers who have pursued AMEP graduates are:

  • Lockheed Martin
  • Boeing
  • Ball Aerospace
  • General Electric Aviation
  • US Patent and Trademark Office
  • Cisco Systems
  • Pratt & Whitney / United Technologies Corp.

Graduate School

Graduate programs that have recently admitted AMEP students include:

  • Department of Computer Sciences — UW-Madison
  • Department of Aeronautics — Caltech
  • Department of Mathematics — MIT
  • Department of Mathematics — Courant Institute, NYU
  • Department of Applied Mathematics — University of Colorado, Boulder
  • Department of Medical Physics — University of Chicago
  • Department of Medical Physics — UW-Madison
  • Department of Materials Science and Engineering — Northwestern University
  • Department of Materials Science and Engineering — UW-Madison

Your advisors are your best resources for questions about graduate school