Cascade graduate earns big grant

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, September 11, 2005

Jeffrey Harris graduated from Cascade High School at 15 with an associate’s degree already under his belt, then blew through two bachelor’s degrees by 18. At 21, he’s finishing a master’s degree.

Now, thanks to a prestigious fellowship, Harris is getting three years of paid tuition toward his doctoral studies, which he starts this winter at the University of Rhode Island.

He had earlier planned on finishing his doctorate in two years.

Oh well.

“I’ve seemed to slow down the last couple of years,” Harris said.

For the math whiz, that means taking ballroom dancing and sailing lessons in the middle of crafting computer models of high-speed ships.

“I just started doing things besides working 24-7,” he said.

Harris now will have more time for work, as well as play, as one of 180 people nationwide to be awarded a three-year graduate fellowship by the U.S. Department of Defense and American Society of Engineering Education.

Besides covering more than $17,000 worth of tuition and fees each year, the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship also comes with annual stipends of more than $30,000.

“Basically, it means that I get to work on my research project without having to deal with anything else,” Harris said. “Last spring I was a teaching assistant, which meant grading papers. It was supposed to be a 20-hour-a-week job … but that kind of dominated a lot of the time I had out of class.”

Harris is a student in URI College of Engineering’s Department of Ocean Engineering based along Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. He’s been working on a master’s degree there after earning bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and oceanography from the University of Washington in 2003.

After working on the design of a hovercraftlike vessel called a Harley surface effect ship, Harris has turned to crafting computer models of other ships.

A computer model can simulate many things, such as the positions of individual particles of water. By simulating the motion of a lot of particles on the surface of the water, engineers can see what kind of a wake a ship has and how much power is needed, helping point to what size engine the ship will need, Harris said.

Harris’ advisor, Stephan Grilli, recruited him to work on the models after noting his math degree.

“I think he will flourish during his Ph.D. studies into a very bright researcher,” Grilli saidin a statement.

Harris is following in the footsteps of two older brothers and an older sister, who each completed their schooling early as well and now are off to successful starts in computers, aerospace and piano performance.

“They all enjoyed learning,” said Cheryl Harris, their mother.

She and her husband, Bill, are proud of each child, and excited about the boost their youngest is now getting. “It will help with the money. When you’ve got four kids in college, it’s not an easy thing,” she said.

Jeffrey Harris isn’t sure what he’ll do at the end of his studies.

He’s given thought to working with the U.S. Navy or “maybe off in a research lab somewhere.”

“It’s sort of an unusual situation,” he said. Many who pursue doctoral degrees do so later in life – not at an age when most are celebrating being able to simply buy a beer.

“Sometimes it’s kind of neat, and sometimes I wish I’d done things in a different order,” Harris said. “But I guess it all works out for the best in the end.”

Reporter Melissa Slager: 425-339-3465 or mslager@heraldnet.com.