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KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 25, 2021 \u2013 Before coming to the University of Rhode Island, Zachary Smith had never been overseas. But during his combined six years in Kingston, Smith made stops in Germany, China and Taiwan, thanks in part to prestigious scholarships.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore that I was Rhode Island born and bred and never traveled,\u201d said Smith, of North Kingstown. \u201cSo, when I got the opportunity during college, it opened up my world view. Suddenly there was a possibility to travel abroad and to meet people of different cultures and learn about their way of living. I found that pretty exciting and neat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith, who graduated from URI in 2020 with degrees in electrical engineering, German and Chinese, will be headed back to Taiwan this September after being awarded a Fulbright grant to pursue a master\u2019s degree in energy engineering at the National Cheng Kung University in Tainan City. The Fulbright grant will cover the first year of the program, along with a second year if he maintains at least a 3.0 grade-point average.<\/p>\n
While at URI, Smith was part of the groundbreaking International Engineering Program (IEP), where students study an engineering discipline and a foreign language, and was a student in the demanding Chinese Language Flagship Program, one of only 12 such programs in the United States. The professors in both programs were excellent, said Smith. He especially praised Sigrid Berka, director of the German and Chinese IEPs.<\/p>\n
\u201cDr. Berka is just the best person in the world,\u201d said Smith, who earned the 2020 Excellence Award in Chinese. \u201cEven though she\u2019s a director, she is very hands-on. She\u2019s very willing to help students and use her overseas networks to pair students with internships abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among his trips abroad, Smith received a Beatrice S. Demers Foreign Language Fellowship to study for a year in Germany in 2017 and a David L. Boren Award to fund his Chinese Flagship Program capstone year in Taiwan in 2019. But the Fulbright was unexpected.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, it came as a surprise,\u201d said Smith, who works as an electrical engineer. \u201cJust as with the Boren, I wouldn\u2019t be going abroad unless I received this scholarship; it opens a new door.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last fall, the recent graduate wasn\u2019t considering applying for a Fulbright; he was searching for a job at the height of the pandemic. While walking around the Kingston campus, practicing his Chinese with a friend, Smith stopped in to see Kathleen Maher, director of the Office of National Fellowships & Academic Opportunities. Maher asked Smith what he was up to and why he wasn\u2019t applying for a Fulbright. She opened the Fulbright website to the Taiwan description and found that there was a new award that fit exactly with Smith\u2019s future aspirations \u2013 a master\u2019s program in energy engineering.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was too good to be true,\u201d Maher said. \u201cAt my urging, he whipped together an application and got his recommendation letters together. Since I knew him well and considered him vetted already, I knew he could pull it together and it was worth it even with the national deadline only weeks away.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Smith, who plans on pursuing a career in the renewable energy industry, the Cheng Kung program is a perfect fit. Taiwan is one of the leaders in the manufacture and development of cutting-edge solar panels. And along with taking classes in various energy sources \u2013 wind, solar, bio, hydro and nuclear \u2013 he will be working in the lab of a professor who is researching new age solar panels.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe classes will give me a familiarity with the workings of solar cells, wind turbines \u2013 how they\u2019re used, how they\u2019re made,\u201d he said. \u201cAlso, I\u2019ll be presenting a master\u2019s thesis, and hope to work in the lab and write my thesis on the exciting work that they\u2019re doing. I would like to spend time learning about that and hopefully seeing if there\u2019s a career in solar cells in either research or the electrical engineering side, creating solar panels or making mass solar arrays.\u201d<\/p>\n
While his first trip to Taiwan for the Boren scholarship was cut short in March 2020 because of the outbreak of COVID-19, he doesn\u2019t anticipate any problems in September. Until a recent surge in cases, Taiwan has successfully fought the pandemic, seeing only about 2,500 total cases and 14 deaths since the outbreak.<\/p>\n
With what he learns in Taiwan, Smith hopes to work in research or manufacturing on cutting-edge solar panels. He eventually would like to work for the federal government at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.<\/p>\n
Renewable energy has been an interest of his since before coming to URI, and he pursued degrees in German and Chinese partly because both countries are leaders in renewable technology. The idea of an energy source \u2013 such as wind or sun \u2013 that is infinite fascinated him, he said, along with renewables\u2019 benefits as a clean energy source.<\/p>\n
\u201cLiving in the United States, we don\u2019t have the air pollution problem like they have in India or China,\u201d said Smith. \u201cI went to China in January of 2016 and the level of air pollution shocked me. The Chinese population live in this situation their entire lives and have no say as to what they\u2019re breathing into their bodies. That was my sophomore year; it invigorated me to continue pursuing electrical engineering and keeping renewable energies as a goal to pursue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a definite that renewable energy is the future,\u201d he added. \u201cThat\u2019s the one thing that not many people are debating around the world. We may disagree on a lot of things, but when it comes to clean energy, global warming and renewable energy in general, it\u2019s exciting that all the world\u2019s scientists and engineers can come together and work on a common goal. That camaraderie is rare.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and those of other countries by providing high-achieving students with the opportunity to research, study or teach abroad.<\/p>\n