University Honors student and doctoral computer science major awarded fellowship for study in Germany
John C. Linford, Virginia Tech University Honors student and doctoral computer science major, has been awarded the prestigious Central Europe Summer Research Institute (CESRI) fellowship to study abroad in Germany this summer.
Linford will be working at the Central Institute for Applied Mathematics at Research Centre Jülich, near Köln, Germany. There he will help to develop new performance analysis tools for high performance computing. Professionally, Linford said he is most excited about interacting with one of the fastest computing machines ever created. Personally, he expects his experiences abroad will allow him to grow more quickly than he could at home. “When you are abroad, there are no guarantees and no familiarities", he said. "I don’t know anyone in Germany, so I’m really looking forward to making new international friends. More importantly, I hope to be a positive representative of not just the U.S. but Virginia Tech as well."
Linford, who embarks on his scholarly international fellowship this month, explains why he’s looking forward to this once in a lifetime opportunity he’s been awarded. “I’ve wanted to go to Germany for over two years now," he said. "My first vacation to Europe took me around the United Kingdom, and the only reason I didn’t go to Germany was that I was intimidated by the language barrier. I’ve since learned to speak German, and since a growing proportion of high performance computing research comes from German research centers, CESRI gives me an opportunity to advance my career while fulfilling a personal dream."
CESRI, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and managed by the Institute of International Education, provides a fellowship opportunity for U.S. graduate students in the field of science and engineering to seek high quality hands-on research experience in one of several international localities including, Austria, Hungary, and Germany. CESRI’s mission is to improve the expertise of awardees as scientists; help them to think and analyze on a broader, global level; and build individual and institutional partnerships and dialogue between the scientific community in the U.S. and Central Europe.
Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech is the most comprehensive university in the Commonwealth of Virginia and is among the top research universities in the nation. Today, Virginia Tech’s eight colleges are dedicated to quality, innovation, and results through teaching, research, and outreach activities. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 180 academic degree programs.
