PITTSBURGH-Daniel Munoz, a first-year Ph.D. student in robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, is the first recipient of the QinetiQ North America Robotics Fellowship, which will provide him with three years of educational support. The fellowship also includes an internship with QinetiQ North America.

Munoz, a native of Fargo, N.D., earned a bachelor's degree from Carnegie Mellon in electrical and computer engineering, with a minor in computer science.

The fellowship is presented by QinetiQ North America Technology Solutions Group of Waltham, Mass., a technology and product development group which includes businesses originally known as Automatika Inc. and Applied Perception when they were spun off from the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute. Candidates for the fellowship included graduate students in all Carnegie Mellon engineering disciplines.

"QinetiQ North America is pleased to provide this fellowship to support the outstanding students and programs at Carnegie Mellon," said William Ribich, president of the Technology Solutions Group. "We expect that they will continue to make many outstanding contributions to the robotics area, an area of increasing importance to the future of the country and our company."

Reid Simmons, research professor and the Robotics Institute's associate director for education, said support for graduate students is vital to the Robotics Institute's educational mission. "We appreciate QinetiQ North America's generosity and look forward to increased opportunities for collaboration with QinetiQ North America and its people," he said.