Two URI engineering alumni who work for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division Newport have been honored with Black Engineer of the Year STEM Outstanding Achievement Awards.
Darryl Mensah, who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering in 2008 and 2010, was named a Science Spectrum Trailblazer.
A resident of Lincoln, Mensah joined NUWC’s Weapons, Vehicles and Defensive Systems Department in 2014. He has the dual role of principal investigator and lead system engineer, supporting the development of an internally-funded project.
Mensah leads a team of more than 25 people from several warfare centers to acquire funding for the vehicle system project, manages the tasking and funding, presents the project status to Navy leadership, and ensures the execution of applicable software testing.
Guilherme Fernandes, who graduated from URI in 1987 with a bachelor’s in computer engineering, won a Modern-Day Technology Leader award.
Fernandes, a resident of Cranston, serves as the research, development, test and evaluation principal technical lead for the next-generation Mark 22 MOD 2 torpedo warhead in NUWC’s Weapons, Vehicles, and Defensive Systems Department.
Since 1987, Fernandes has supported lightweight and heavyweight torpedo programs for the U.S. Navy and Foreign Military Sales. He is recognized as the torpedo warhead software and hardware subject matter expert, and is widely respected by his peers, leaders and customers.