Outstanding Opportunities for Exceptional Students
Since 1973, the Draper Scholar Program, formally known as the Draper Fellow Program has supported more than 1,000 graduate students pursuing advanced degrees in engineering and the sciences. Draper Scholars are from both civilian and military backgrounds and Draper Scholar Alumni excel worldwide in the technical, corporate, government, academic and entrepreneurship sectors.
In the 2019/20 academic year, Draper is supporting 65 Scholars at 9 universities in the Draper Scholar Program and two graduate students in the Hertz-Draper Scholar Program. Twenty-one Draper Scholars graduated in 2019.
The Scholarship Experience
The Draper Scholarship provides a unique opportunity for students to benefit not only from immersion in their university's academic research environment, but also from Draper's facilities, collective knowledge and experience. Draper Scholars work closely with Draper technical staff to develop state-of-the-art technologies in world-class laboratories, and their scholarly outputs often go beyond top-tier journal papers and conference presentations to include prototypes, testbeds and field implementations. Each Draper Scholar conducts his/her research under the supervision of both a university faculty advisor and a Draper supervisor who is a member of Draper’s technical staff in an area of mutual interest.
The Draper Scholar Program provides structured additional professional development opportunities for students to complement and supplement their research experiences. Additionally, Fellows have the opportunity to be paired with a mentor drawn from Program alumni to leverage the Draper Fellow network across space and time.
Quick facts:
- Draper Scholar Program supports M.S. and Ph.D. study in technical areas of interest to Draper, in engineering and the sciences. All Draper Scholars must complete a thesis.
- Support includes tuition and stipend; tuition is at a rate agreed to by Draper and the university while stipend is at the university's set rate.
- Draper expects to support a scholar for the time required to complete his/her degree. Scholarships are renewable annually following a successful yearly review by a faculty advisor and Draper supervisor indicating progress toward the degree.
- Students must be accepted to and matriculate at a participating university, listed below.
- Technical areas of interest to Draper include but are not limited to our capability areas, as given at draper.com/core-capabilities.
- Students may be at any point in their graduate degree programs; the Scholarship is not limited to students at the beginning of their graduate study.
- Active duty military personnel pursuing graduate study may work on classified projects.
- The program is open to U.S. citizens only.
Participating universities:
- Boston University
- Brown University
- Harvard University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Northeastern University
- Purdue University
- Rice University
- Tufts University
- University of Colorado, Boulder
- University of Massachusetts, Lowell
- University of South Florida
Department/degree programs:
- Aerospace Engineering
- Bioengineering/Biomedical Engineering
- Computer Science
- Electrical Engineering/Electrical & Computer Engineering/EECS
- Health, Science, and Technology (Harvard/MIT Joint Program)
- Materials Science
- Mechanical Engineering
- Nuclear Engineering
- Operations Research
- Physics
- Technology and Policy
- Other programs also may be included
Applications to the Draper Scholar Program AY2022-2023 will open in mid-late October 2021.