NASA Dryden’s Trong Bui Selected for NAFP Fellowship
Trong Bui, an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, will have the opportunity to share some of the most current NASA engineering technology at two regional universities following his selection as a 2005 NASA Administrator’s Fellowship Program (NAFP) Fellow.
Bui, an engineer in the Propulsion and Performance Branch of Dryden’s Research Engineering Directorate, elected to teach in the aerospace engineering department at California Polytechnic State University in Pomona, Calif. for a full academic year. He will also be an instructor with California State University Fresno’s mechanical engineering department satellite office at the Lancaster University Center in Lancaster, Calif.
The NAFP is designed to enhance faculty teaching in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, Tribal Colleges and Universities, and other minority-serving institutions. The program also seeks to increase the ability of these institutions to respond to NASA’s overall research and development mission.
Secondarily, the program seeks to enhance the professional development of NASA employees. Those employees selected by NASA’s Office of Education to be NAFP fellows spend approximately nine months teaching, conducting research in science/engineering, or assisting in an administrative capacity at these institutions. For the remaining nine to 13 months of the two-year fellowship, the fellows are detailed in professional development assignments at NASA and other appropriate organizations.
Bui’s professional development assignment will be working with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company’s Advanced Development Programs in Palmdale, Calif.
“I think this will be a terrific experience, and I will look forward to making the most of this opportunity at Cal Poly Pomona, Fresno State, and Lockheed-Martin in the next two years,” said Bui, who joined NASA in 1990 and has worked at Dryden since 1997.
The NASA employee fellows will share information about NASA-specific technology with colleges and universities, while gaining valuable insights to help guide future NASA initiatives, and enhancing their own technical, research and management skills to assist NASA in meeting its future science and technology goals. The fellows will also assist the host institutions in familiarizing themselves with NASA’s mission, the exchange of NASA-specific technology, procedures for initiating and responding to NASA contracts/proposals, and generally providing the institutions with background information pertinent to establishing a relationship with the agency.
Bui will be Dryden’s second NAFP recipient. Dryden electrical engineer Kurt Kloesel previously received a NAFP fellowship in 2000 and taught in the Department of Electrical Engineering/Center for Applied Radiation Research at Prairie View A&M, Prairie View, Texas.
Bui earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aeronautical engineering from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo and a doctorate in Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.
Bui was recently honored by his peers at Dryden with a “One NASA Center Best” award for his collaboration with industry, the military, and other NASA Centers on the Dryden Aerospike Rocket Test that he directed in 2004.
For more information on the NASA Administrator’s Fellowship Program go to: http://www.uncfsp.org/nasa/nafp/
PHOTO EDITORS: A recent publication-quality photo of Trong Bui is available from the NASA Dryden web site photo gallery at: http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/People/HTML/EC04-0359-3.html
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