A new collaboration between UMass Lowell and Analog Devices, Inc. enables employees of the global semiconductor manufacturer to advance their education through tuition assistance offered by the company.
The Analog Devices/UMass Lowell Master’s Fellowship Program provides a fully funded, accelerated path for employees in the company’s Aerospace and Defense Business Unit to pursue master’s degrees in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering or computer science. The aerospace and defense industry continues to grow at a rapid rate and the scholarship program is designed to help Analog Devices meet its need for skilled engineers to design innovative technologies for this market.
Analog Devices employees in the new program enroll at UMass Lowell through its division of graduate, online and professional studies and attend classes online as full-time students for four semesters. While pursuing their education, the students work part time for 20 hours a week at Analog Devices and continue to receive their full-time salary and benefits.
In their last semester, the employees work with UMass Lowell faculty and their Analog Devices supervisor to complete a project relevant to their work, according to Sandhya Balasubramanian, UMass Lowell assistant dean of academic and corporate program development. She designed the new program with leaders from UMass Lowell’s Francis College of Engineering and Kennedy College of Sciences, along with executives from Analog Devices to meet the company’s needs to cultivate talented professionals for the aerospace and defense industry.
“Created through UMass Lowell’s Corporate Education Program, this new academic partnership with Analog Devices illustrates UMass Lowell’s ability to identify the needs of our corporate partners and create innovative solutions that best fit their learning and development goals,” she said. “The university offers a broad range of open-enrollment courses and custom-designed programs, both for credit and non-credit, in varied delivery modes. In addition, we offer an array of benefits for our pre-approved partners such as tuition deferment, group tuition discount and registration, as well as dedicated assistance from our enrollment specialists. We are ready to partner with any employer who is keen to advance learning and development opportunities for their workforce as a complement to their hiring package for new graduates or other employees.”
The new program expands on the university’s longstanding collaboration with Analog Devices, which includes a robust research alliance with the company and work with the university’s Career and Co-op Center to provide full-time jobs, co-op experience and internships to students, Balasubramanian added.
“This new collaboration provides a funded pathway for Analog Devices employees, increasing their engagement with the university while providing state-of-art engineering training for them. These types of collaborations help set UMass Lowell apart from other research universities, as we strive to not only educate students but engage with the greater community,” said UMass Lowell’s Steven Tello, vice provost of graduate, online and professional studies.
The program responds to changes in the aerospace industry.
“Over the last several years, Analog Devices has experienced significant growth in its aerospace and defense business,” said Bryan Goldstein, vice president of the Aerospace and Defense Business Unit. “To meet our customers’ needs and further differentiate Analog Devices from our peers, we have created this fellowship program to foster engineers who possess a breadth of skillsets, many of which require advanced degrees. UMass Lowell is the ideal collaborator, given its broad-ranging engineering curriculum with special focus on RF/microwave, digital/software/firmware and mechanical engineering, as well as the proximity of the university’s campus to our Massachusetts facilities.”
Analog Devices employees Justin Reiter of Dedham and Karl Dwenson Tabiling of Dorchester are already benefitting from the educational program, as both are pursuing UMass Lowell master’s degrees in electrical engineering with a concentration in microwave engineering.
Reiter, who is a mechanical engineer in the Aerospace and Defense Module Group, joined Analog Devices in June 2015, when he first worked in mechanical and thermal design. Tabiling is a test development engineer in Analog Devices’ Aerospace and Defense Product Test Group. He joined the company as an intern in 2007 at Analog Devices’ facility in Cavite City, Philippines, and transferred to the U.S. in 2015.