RockOn Workshop – apply now for June 2025!

RockOn 2025 banner image

RockOn, a workshop at Wallops Flight Facility for sounding rocket payload design, is an exciting chance for faculty and students to kickstart payload projects at their home institutions. Participants in the workshop will build a working scientific payload and then see it launch on a real sounding rocket!

MDSGC intends to sponsor one or more teams for each year’s workshop and encourages Maryland students and/or faculty to submit applications for team sponsorship! For 2025, the RockOn registration is now open and closes on February 14, 2025. If you are interested for this year or an upcoming year, please visit NASA’s RockOn page to apply and also contact MDSGC to let us know of your interest.

Here is a summary of important information about RockOn 2025:

  • Application deadline is 02/14/25 – but why wait?
  • 1 faculty mentor from the applicant institution must be willing to attend.
  • 2 students from the applicant institution must be able to commit to attending.
  • Attending faculty and students must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
  • Workshop dates are June 20-27, 2025.
  • Location is NASA/Wallops, with hotels nearby in Chincoteague, VA.
  • In order for you to participate, NASA must select your application – it’s not automatic.
  • MDSGC will pay the workshop registration and travel costs for all Maryland institutions/participants that are selected, subject to the availability of funds.

Graduate Fellowship Applications

The application period for Spring 2025 Fellowships has closed and applications are currently under review.

Text from the original announcement follows:

MDSGC is pleased to announce an opportunity to apply for graduate fellowship support for Spring Semester 2025. This is open to graduate students at all MDSGC affiliate institutions other than JHU. The deadline to apply is October 1, 2024. See the program announcement (non-JHU students) for details.

There is a separate opportunity available to JHU students with a deadline of October 11, 2024. The administrative requirements are slightly different because MDSGC is based at JHU, and the deadline is later because the announcement was distributed later. See the program announcement (JHU students) for details.

Frequently asked questions:

Q: Is $10,500 the cap on tuition/fees only or the maximum total award amount?
A: $10,500 is the cap on tuition/fees only. Salary and fringe should be requested at a standard level for the host department and has no pre-set cap.

Scholarship Applications

The regular application period for Academic Year 2024-2025 scholarships has closed. The deadline to apply was Friday, May 31. Any student may still submit an off-cycle application for consideration if funding becomes available. For information about the program and to apply, visit the MDSGC Scholarships page.

MDSGC Summer Exchange Internship Program

Each year, student interns are placed at participating MDSGC universities for a paid 10-week internship experience. Visit the 2024 Summer Exchange page to view information about this past summer’s projects. Project information for Summer 2025 will be posted in January with the application deadline anticipated around the end of February.

The MDSGC Summer Exchange program supports qualified students from participating universities to partake in hands-on summer internships at any of the other participating institutions. Interested students should contact the faculty coordinator (see below) at their home institution. Currently, the participating institutions and faculty coordinators are:

Capitol Technology University
Prof. Marcel Mabson

Hagerstown Community College
Prof. Ed Sigler

Morgan State University
Prof. Guangming Chen

University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Prof. Carlos Romero-Talamás

University of Maryland, College Park
Prof. Mary Bowden

University of Maryland, Eastern Shore
Prof. Abhijit Nagchaudhuri

Any questions may be addressed to the faculty coordinator at your institution or Matt Collinge at MDSGC.