Student Spotlight - David Hodo
Doctoral Candidate, Electrical Engineering
Research: Autonomous vehicles
Hometown: Alexander City, Ala.
As a senior at Auburn, David Hodo faced a major fork in the road of his life: to enter the job market or to obtain a graduate degree. Despite the temptation of a real salary, David opted to stay at Auburn to earn a graduate degree.
"I have great intellectual curiosity and love a challenge," says Hodo. "Here I get to work on cutting-edge research projects that I probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to be involved in as an entry-level engineer," he says. "Plus, I have a lot of independence and the ability to make key decisions that a starting engineer in industry wouldn't have."
And David's research is truly cutting-edge. With a grant from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, he is developing software that will guide robotic vehicles used to find unexploded ordnance - possibly saving the lives of many and reclaiming land that is currently too dangerous to utilize. As a result of his stellar research, teaching and academic efforts, David was awarded the 2006-2007 Auburn University Outstanding Graduate Student Award.
David could have chosen to attend other universities like Florida, Georgia Tech or Virginia Tech that had faculty working on similar projects, but he chose to stay at Auburn because of its size and quality of the faculty and research facilities.
"Auburn's program is moderate in size, with fewer graduate students per faculty member," says Hodo. "That means I get a lot of guidance and time from them, something that would not have happened at some of the other schools I considered," he says. "Here I've developed close relationships with faculty members and have had opportunities to work on advanced research, which many of the grad students working in some of the large labs at other universities cannot claim."
