AAE undergraduate selected as scholarship recipient by Wings Club Foundation
An AAE undergraduate was one of 11 students nationally who received a scholarship from The Wings Club Foundation, a non-profit club that promotes the advancement and development of aeronautics.
The scholarship was established in 1997 with the primary purpose to provide financial support to students who have demonstrated interest and academic success in a higher-education program designed to lead students to professional careers within the aviation or space industry. In addition to having a minimum 3.0 GPA to qualify for the scholarship, The Wings Club Foundation also asked schools selecting recipients to consider “achievement, initiative, integrity and ambition” as “attributes worthy of consideration.”
Junior Ryan Murphy received $10,000 and attended The Wings Club Foundation Annual Gala, which honors a significant figure and contributor to the aviation industry each year, on Oct. 18 in New York City.
“It was such an honor receiving this scholarship. For me, it was a testament to how hard work pays off and how you can't succeed unless you try,” Murphy said. “I was also very honored to discover that I was the second Purdue student to receive this scholarship.”
Murphy was required to submit an essay that described his career goals and why he should be entitled to be awarded the scholarship. With experience through a Co-Op with Gulfstream Aerospace in Savannah, Ga., Murphy has worked with safety and additive manufacturing. That has sparked an interest in a career that combines the two in which he could evaluate the safety implications of additive manufacturing processes that are becoming more popular in the industry, he said.
He also is interested in exploring and contributing to hypersonic projects.
“No matter what I’m doing, I just want my work to be meaningful to the industry,” he said.
In 2018, AAE undergraduate Mohit Pathak was one of nine college students selected to receive the scholarship.