Williams receives Ford Foundation Fellowship to Support Doctoral Studies
Kenton Williams, a graduating senior in mechanical engineering, has been awarded a Ford Foundation Fellowship that will support three years of his doctoral studies.
He conducted undergraduate research through the Ohio State Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP) working on a computer simulation of a biped robot using MatLab and C++ software, with Jim Schmiedeler, assistant professor in mechanical engineering. Williams studied the use of Passivity Based Control to regulate the total energy of the system. He is interested in studying robotics and bio-mimicry while pursuing his doctoral degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) after completing his undergraduate degree at Ohio State this coming spring.
The Ford Fellowship will cover annual tuition costs and an additional $20,000 annual stipend. Williams will also have the opportunity to attend a Ford Fellows conference with all expenses covered.
Through its program of Diversity Fellowships, the Ford Foundation seeks to increase the diversity of the nation's college and university faculties by increasing their ethnic and racial diversity, to maximize the educational benefits of diversity, and to increase the number of professors who can and will use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students. The Ford Foundation Fellowship grants approximately 60 pre-doctoral fellowships each year across the United States.
