3:12 p.m., May 14, 2009----Conor Keenan, a first-year Ph.D. candidate in materials science and engineering at the University of Delaware, has been awarded the 2009 George W. Laird Merit Fellowship. The objective of the fellowship is to “encourage the recipient to become engaged in a broadening intellectual pursuit which may or may not be of direct application to the recipient's chosen field of study.”

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First awarded in 1977 to honor the memory of George W. Laird, a mechanical engineering graduate of UD who died in an accident at the age of 35, the prestigious fellowship is bestowed upon candidates who exhibit character, creativity, imagination, and perseverance, all of which are focal points of the selection process.

Keenan, who is advised by John W. Gillespie Jr., Donald C. Phillips Professor and director of UD's Center for Composite Materials (CCM), earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Washington. At UW, he conducted undergraduate research on bonding of composite joints in aerospace structures. His doctoral research at CCM focuses on durability of novel composite materials.

Growing up in Bigfork, Montana, Keenan says his family played an integral role in his interest in engineering and advanced materials.

“My grandfather, who worked as an engineer in Colorado, had a tremendous impact on my personal and academic development before college,” Keenan says. “We worked together on many 'handyman' projects around the restaurant that my parents owned. I like to think that I adopted some of his great problem-solving abilities and his incredible ingenuity, which seemed to enable him to fix anything.”

When Keenan was in high school, sports, particularly baseball and golf, became an important part of his life. “Through sports and the countless hours I spent practicing, I became curious about and intrigued by materials,” Keenan says. “There seemed to be drastic improvements every year in the equipment that I used when I was younger, and I was captivated by all of the new technology that resulted in improvements in my performance. This continues to be a driving force in my studies, as I hope to some day start a company and develop new materials that will spark interest in the engineers of the future as it did with me.”

Still a golf enthusiast today, Keenan plans to use some of the money from the Laird Fellowship to travel in Europe and maybe “fit in a few holes” in Ireland while doing so.

“I still love to golf, and getting a chance to play in Ireland would be great,” he says. “I never had much of a chance to travel while doing my undergraduate work, so maybe now I can get that opportunity.”

“The Laird Fellowship helps to show another side of students,” Gillespie says, “which includes broad-based interests and activities outside science and engineering. Conor presented himself as a well-rounded individual, and he gives a good impression when you meet him. I'm sure that was a major factor in his selection by the Laird Family.”

Keenan is Gillespie's third student to win the Laird Fellowship. Molly Stone, who earned a master's degree in materials science in 1997, was the 1996 Laird Fellow, and Frank Moon, who completed a master's degree in civil engineering in 2000, was the 1999 recipient.

As an undergraduate at the University of Washington, Keenan served as president of both UW's student chapter of the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE) and an organization known as Material Advantage.

“Some of my best memories are from outreach activities that we organized through Material Advantage,” Keenan says. “We visited local schools and did fun materials demonstrations and experiments to help build awareness of engineering and materials science. My peers and I spent hours talking with the kids and answering all sorts of questions about our field and the great opportunities available through engineering.”

He also worked as a legislative aide for his father, who served in the Montana legislature for 12 years.

Keenan has kept his civic spirit alive at UD through mentoring of the undergraduates in UD's SAMPE chapter. He is currently advising them on their entry in SAMPE's Super Light Weight Composite Wing Contest, to be held in Baltimore on May 19.

And it probably won't be long before Keenan finds other outlets for his energy and altruism. “I'm anxious to get involved with the community here on the East Coast,” he says. “I couldn't be more excited about the opportunities and experiences that await me. I know that I can make the world a better place as engineers before me have done, and I'm eager to get started.”

Article by Diane Kukich