Willemann awarded Fulbright for engineering research dedication

When Michael Willemann got the letter that sealed the deal, that anointed him as Tech's only undergraduate Fulbright scholar so far this year, he handled it in his typically unassuming fashion.

“He just walked down the hall and handed us the letter,” said Jack Dudley, director of the university honors program. “Barbara (Cowles, associate honors director) and I were jumping up and down and he just handed us the letter.”

But this type of unassuming acceptance in the face of outstanding achievement has characterized the undergraduate experience of this senior materials science engineering major.

From co-chairing the efforts of the Student Engineer's Council to create a 300-student, 42-college engineering conference in the District of Columbia this April to being dubbed the 2006 Outstanding Senior in the College of Engineering, Willemann has achieved much in a department characterized by high achievement.

“A Fulbright scholarship certainly is an international honor over the years we've had a few in the College of Engineering. Anytime that one of our students is able to achieve this it brings honor to the program,” said Lynn Nystrom, faculty adviser to the SEC and director of news and external relations. “He's a quite person who gets things done.”

Willemann's voice, however, picks up a little gusto when he talks about the research on gallium nitride, at the Technische Hochschule in Aachen, Germany.

“If you've seen a lot of the LED's they're usually yellow or green, some of the new one's you see are blue, those are made with the same material I'll be working on. It's a lot more reliable, a lot more efficient. It would be used to replace fluorescent bulbs or incandescent bulbs… the new bulbs could last 20 to 30 years and save a lot of energy,” he said.

As a freshman, Willemann was one of the three original winners of the Wayne and Claire Horton Honors Scholarship, a $10,000 prize given to an engineering major with a minor or second major in the humanities in order to allow that student to both pay for room and board at the university as well as to engage their intellectual curiosity internationally. Willemann, who took his trip to the Ukraine, has a minor in German, something he says turned out to be more fortunate than he had ever thought.

“I took it in high school. It worked out well, because Germany has a lot of good technology centers for materials engineering. It was an accidental choice but a fortuitous one,” said Willemann, who “dabbles” in politics and hikes in his spare time.

Willemann returned to the Ukraine last summer with a professor from Clemson university.

While his experience abroad has enriched his collegiate experience, the relationship he has with David Clark, department head for materials science and engineering, has proven crucial in pushing Willemann in his research endeavors.

“I worked with Dr. Clarke, and a lot of my habits as far as analytical investigation and just a general approach to research and engineering could be most attributed to him … It's particularly great because he's the department head and there's a lot of demands,” on his time, said Willemann.

Clark, who along with Stephen Kampe, professor of materials science and engineering, were instrumental in facilitating Willemann's Fulbright application, a process which Willemann said took approximately one month.

Neither professor could not be reached for comment for this story.

Along with the professional guidance of his engineering professors, Dudley's encouragement to push himself altered Willemann's ambition.

“It's not so much a direct influence as he's always encouraged everyone he talks to to take risks, assume the best in yourself. I probably wouldn't have applied for the Fulbright scholarship four or five years ago. I probably figured I wouldn't be good enough. It's a risk every time. It's a risk worth taking.”