Rising senior Robert Demuth was recently named recipient of the 2022 Robert Maher Memorial Scholarship. The $5,000 scholarship is sponsored by Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC), the liquid waste contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy at the Savannah River Site (SRS). Demuth will receive the award in November at the annual Teller Lecture and Banquet in Aiken, South Carolina.
Demuth, a native of Gray Court, South Carolina, is currently enrolled in the accelerated bachelor’s/master’s program. He will graduate next May with a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering with a minor in nuclear engineering and a master’s degree in nuclear engineering.
“Winning the Maher Memorial Scholarship not only takes financial pressure off me, but more importantly it is validating,” Demuth says. “It makes me feel accomplished in my research and that I am getting the most out of my college years. I enjoy nuclear engineering because it's a technical challenge that requires multiple disciplines of understanding.”
Demuth has worked in the lab of Travis Knight, professor and interim chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, since his freshman year, including summers and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“After working with students for more than 25 years, I can say I have never had one that could work so independently with minimal instruction from his earliest days at the university as an undergraduate,” Knight says. “Robert can problem solve, doesn’t give up, he keeps reading, researching, comparing, thinking, and when he has done his due diligence he seeks additional input, information and dialogue.”
The Robert Maher Memorial Scholarship is a joint project of Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness and SRMC. Maher was vice president and general manager for strategic mission development at SRS. He died in 2002 after a 48-year career at the site. The annual scholarship was established in Maher’s memory to support students pursuing science and engineering degrees in preparation for careers in the nuclear field.