MACON – Mercer University junior Parker Laue was recently selected for the German Academic Exchange Service’s (DAAD) Research Internships in Science and Engineering (RISE) summer program.
Laue, from Huntsville, Alabama, is a mechanical engineering major. He will spend the summer working in Ingolstald, Germany, to set up and program a weather station and conduct research with professors at the Institute of New Energy Systems (InES) at the Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt (THI) related to thermal solar systems.
“I am so thankful to have this amazing opportunity to conduct research in Germany this summer,” said Laue. “I would not be able to complete this internship without my family and the amazing faculty here at Mercer who have been so supportive to me. I am looking forward to learning a lot more about research and sharpening my engineering skills. In addition, spending a whole summer in Europe will allow me to learn so much about German and European cultures and history.”
Laue is a member of the Student Leadership Team for University Admissions, a peer adviser, an Engineering Scholar and a Mercer Ambassador.
He has traveled with Mercer On Mission to Vietnam and continues to work in the prosthetics lab in the School of Engineering.
He plans to obtain a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, and eventually start his own company.
“Parker has an outstanding academic record at Mercer that only begins to define him. He has assumed a leadership role in several campus organizations, and worked diligently and compassionately last summer in Vietnam as a member of our Mercer On Mission team providing amputees with prosthetic limbs,” said Dr. Richard Kunz, associate professor of mechanical engineering. “The opportunity to spend the summer in Germany in a research environment will be invaluable to him in his personal and professional growth as an engineer and as a world citizen.”
The RISE program was first offered in 2005 to undergraduate students in the U.S. and Canada in the fields of biology, chemistry, physics, earth sciences and engineering. In 2009, the program expanded to include students from the United Kingdom. Currently, around 300 scholarships are available each year.
Interns work with research groups at top research institutions across Germany for two to three months during the summer. They are matched with doctoral students whom they assist and who serve as their mentors. The internship includes a stipend to cover living expenses, and partner institutions provide housing assistance. For more information, visit www.daad.de/rise/en/.
About Mercer University School of Engineering
Mercer University’s School of Engineering, founded in 1985, offers innovative and academically challenging programs that provide students with a comprehensive education, featuring a solid foundation in mathematics and sciences, a core engineering curriculum, a range of courses in engineering specialties and a strong emphasis on communication technologies. The School is consistently ranked by U.S. News and World Report as one of the top three master’s-degree-level engineering schools in the Southeast. Known for its breadth of instruction in its undergraduate program and its five-year joint bachelor’s and master’s degree program, the School combines technical education with hands-on laboratory experience. Mercer engineers can look forward to joining fellow alumni in companies such as Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex, Lockheed Martin, Georgia Power, Siemens and Gulfstream Aerospace.
