U.S. Department of Defense

DOD internship is a key part of this accounting major’s experiential learning

Sarah Holland — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 13:53:49 +0000

DOD internship is a key part of this accounting major’s experiential learning Sarah Holland Mon, 10/02/2023 - 09:53

Accounting major Marcou Shohdi has a plan for his time at ��AV, and he is carefully executing it. His plan: to get experience in public, corporate, and government accounting before he graduates.

“This will allow me to make a well-informed choice regarding the direction of my career,” he said.

Photo by Ron Aira/��AV

Shohdi, who was born in Egypt and lives in Gainesville, Virginia, transferred to Mason from Northern Virginia Community College, where he earned his associate’s degree in business administration. For him, accounting as a major and a career was a clear choice.

Shohdi said what he is looking for in terms of his career was stability, flexibility, job security, and opportunities for advancement, and accounting provides all that.

“Accounting skills are always in demand,” he said. “Every business—from public accounting firms to nonprofits—needs to manage its financial records and comply with tax regulations, even during economic downturns.”

Shohdi already has six years in corporate accounting under his belt from his day jobs; he is currently a senior accountant at EEA Companies. This summer he decided to give government accounting a try.

Shohdi was one of four Mason students chosen for an internship in the U.S. Navy’s Financial Management and Comptroller (FM&C) Office. The program, a partnership between FM&C and Mason’s School of Business, was established by Dean Ajay Vinzé and Mason alum Alaleh Jenkins, BS Accounting ’97, who is principal deputy assistant secretary of the Navy, to bring new talent to government service.

Shohdi made the most of his time working at the Navy Yard and even completed the 23 courses required to obtain a level 1 Department of Defense (DoD) financial management certification.

“The skills I've gained in feedback coordination, status tracking, and collaboration are invaluable,” said Shohdi. “I'm particularly thankful for the exposure to cross-departmental collaboration, enabling me to incorporate compliance procedures into Navy policies. Tracking [Notices of Findings and Recommendations] responses and contributing to revisions has honed my process improvement abilities.”

He also said the DoD courses were a huge help in mastering the Navy’s many acronyms and systems.

What’s next up for Shohdi is public accounting, and he has that covered. He has an internship with KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting organizations, scheduled for January 2024.

Learn more about Accounting at Mason

In This Story

Ajay Vinzé

Alexandra Anderson from ��AV Awarded SMART Scholarship

Wasiq Muhammad Muhammad Ali — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 17:06:14 +0000

Alexandra Anderson from ��AV Awarded SMART Scholarship Wasiq Muhammad… Tue, 04/12/2022 - 13:06

Alexandra Anderson, a BS Honors College student-athlete at ��AV (GMU) was awarded the Department of Defense Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship.

This award provides students with full tuition for up to five years, mentorship, summer internships, a stipend and full-time employment with the Department of Defense after graduation. This unique opportunity offers students hands-on experience at one of over 200 innovative laboratories across the Army, Navy, Air Force and larger Department of Defense. During summer internships, SMART scholars work directly with an experienced mentor, gaining valuable technical skills. After graduation Anderson will work at The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) in Springfield, VA.

Anderson is currently studying Computer Science, with a minor in Intelligence Studies while playing NCAA Division I softball for GMU. Anderson said, “I am SO excited and blessed to announce that I have been named a recipient of The Department of Defense’s SMART Scholarship-for-Service Program for 2022! A huge thank you to everyone involved for this amazing opportunity! I especially want to thank God and my parents! I cannot wait for what the future holds!” about the award.

The Department of Defense is committed to developing the Nation's STEM talent and is the largest employer of federal scientists and engineers with nearly 150,000 civilian STEM employees working across the Department. DoD STEM activities support this mission by providing authentic learning experiences through a variety of education and outreach initiatives, such as the SMART Scholarship-for-Service Program. For over a decade, SMART has trained a highly skilled STEM workforce that competes with the evolving trends of industry to support the next generation of science and technology for our nation.

For more information on the SMART Program or to learn how students can apply, please visit www.smartscholarship.org . The application is open annually from August through December.

ABOUT THE SMART PROGRAM

The SMART Scholarship-for-Service Program is a combined educational and workforce development opportunity for bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. students to gain technical skills in critical STEM fields and support the national security mission of the Department of Defense.

Contact: Outreach@smartscholarship.org

Topics

U.S. Department of Defense

computer science

Scholarships

'Artificial blubber' will allow divers extended time in frigid waters

Melanie Balog — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 10:00:32 +0000

'Artificial blubber' will allow divers extended time in frigid waters Melanie Balog Thu, 01/10/2019 - 05:00

People Mentioned in This Story

Jeffrey Moran

Jeff Moran, assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the Volgenau School of Engineering, is working to make wetsuits more effective and keep divers warmer longer. Photo by Lathan Goumas/Strategic Communications.

A ��AV researcher is part of a team of scientists who have devised a wetsuit treatment that greatly increases the amount of time divers can safely spend in bitterly cold water.

Jeff Moran, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering within the Volgenau School of Engineering, and researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have come up with a plan to triple the survival time for swimmers in wetsuits in unforgiving environments, including Arctic waters. The team, which worked on the project in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Navy SEALs, published their findings in the June 2018 edition of the journal RSC Advances.

The development comes at a critical time as the U.S. military is seeking to expand its presence in the Arctic. Continued melting of the polar ice caps means the region will see increased shipping traffic, commercial fishing and efforts by various nations to tap the region’s many resources, including oil.

“Current wetsuits—current solutions that we have for diving in super-cold water and very cold conditions—are fundamentally limited,” Moran said. “Hypothermia becomes a serious risk after 20 to 30 minutes. We saw room for improvement.”

The wetsuit treatment will also have applications for swimmers, athletes, surfers and recreational divers.

Standard wetsuits are made of neoprene, a stretchy type of synthetic rubber that is filled with pockets of air that account for most of the material’s volume and half of the heat that escapes. When the wetsuit is placed inside a five-gallon pressure tank—no bigger than a beer keg—filled with a heavy, inert gas such as xenon or krypton for one to five days, the heavier gas replaces the air within the neoprene. The process creates an artificial blubber-type substance that greatly enhances the wetsuit’s thermal insulation properties.

“The fundamental idea of the project is to replace air with a better insulating gas,” said Moran, who worked closely on the project with Jacopo Buongiorno and Michael Strano, the MIT professors whose visit to the Defense Science Study Group inspired the project.

The breakthrough could have significant national security implications for U.S. military personnel operating in water colder than 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) by increasing survivability in those conditions from less than an hour to as long as three hours.

“The main impact of this materials technology is delaying the onset of hypothermia for the warfighter,” said Anton Cottrill, an MIT graduate student and coauthor of the journal article. “You can modify a current wetsuit using the process that we have developed to essentially double the time that a diver can spend in frigid, arctic waters before the onset of hypothermia.”

The innovation makes the treated wetsuit’s material a better insulator, but it also makes the suit easier to put on, move around in and take off than conventional suits because the treated versions are 40 percent thinner, said Moran, himself an amateur diver.

Oscar Barton, the chair of Mason’s Mechanical Engineering Department who taught at the U.S. Naval Academy for more than 20 years before coming to Mason, lauded the breakthrough for its potential contributions to the U.S. military.

“There’s always an effort to push the envelope for anything that involves man and machine,” Barton said. “In my mind, it’s taking what we do in the classroom, developing the technology and getting it to market.”

Moran and his team hope to soon complete a stable long-term version of the wetsuit and begin human trials. They’ve already applied for a patent to protect their work.

“The goal is to make diving in cold water a less miserable experience,” Moran said.

U.S. Department of Defense

DOD internship is a key part of this accounting major’s experiential learning

Learn more about Accounting at Mason

In This Story

Read more of our Internship Series

More from Mason Spirit Magazine

Alexandra Anderson from ��AV Awarded SMART Scholarship

ABOUT THE SMART PROGRAM

Topics

'Artificial blubber' will allow divers extended time in frigid waters

U.S. Department of Defense

DOD internship is a key part of this accounting major’s experiential learning

Learn more about Accounting at Mason

In This Story

Read more of our Internship Series

More from Mason Spirit Magazine

Alexandra Anderson from ����AV Awarded SMART Scholarship

ABOUT THE SMART PROGRAM

Topics

'Artificial blubber' will allow divers extended time in frigid waters

Alexandra Anderson from ��AV Awarded SMART Scholarship