Robotics students earn Amazon Day One Fellowships
This fall, two Boston University College of Engineering graduate students arrived on campus as Amazon Day One Fellows, gaining mentorship, internship and career opportunities as part of a program aimed at boosting both the diversity and the quality of the robotics engineering workforce.
Asbel Fontanez (ENG’22) and Priscila Rubio are both pursuing master of science degrees in Robotics & Autonomous Systems. Along with a dozen other exceptionally talented students across seven universities, Fontanez and Rubio are recipients of the fellowships, which cover tuition, living expenses, and other costs.
The program launched in 2021 with six recipients across three institutions. This year’s cohort, hailing from a range of technical and cultural backgrounds, includes master’s students in robotics, engineering, computer science, and related fields at Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown University, Stanford University, Northeastern University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. In addition to the scholarship, Amazon Day One Fellows are offered internships and networking opportunities with fellows and faculty at the other institutions.
“We have selected and invested in another outstanding class of future scientists and engineers to pursue some of the hardest problems in our field at some of the best academic institutions on the planet,” said Amazon Robotics Chief Technologist Tye Brady (ENG’90). “We are excited to be a part of their journey to greatness.”
Fontanez was lead programmer for his high school’s robotics team before coming to BU to study electrical engineering. He added a concentration in machine learning, getting a jump on graduate-level robotics courses. He will complete his master’s coursework in December and spend the first eight months of 2023 working a co-op at the Amazon Robotics headquarters in North Reading.
Besides being the best engineer he can be in the medical robotics field, Fontanez says he hopes to one day establish a nonprofit centered on STEM education. “One thing I’ve learned is, don’t be greedy with your opportunities; use them to help others coming up behind you,” he says. “So students who would never have the chance to mess around with a CNC or a 3D printer because of where they live, I want to give them the opportunity to do that.”
Rubio co-authored a National Institutes of Health study on the activation mechanism of A3 adenosine receptors while she was earning a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland. She also interned at Northrop Grumman, where she helped design mechanical ground support equipment for the Minotaur rocket.
After graduating from Maryland in 2021, Rubio worked as a mechanical engineer for the startup US Medical Innovations, where she used her budding mechatronics expertise to design, test, and extend the capabilities of surgical instruments. Rubio will take part in an Amazon internship next summer. Eventually, she hopes to build the next Mars Rover.
“I feel the fellowship program is very powerful because it advances engineers from underrepresented backgrounds,” Rubio says. “I don’t have anybody in my family who’s an engineer—I’m the first. Having the mentorship from Amazon is really going to help me in my career. It opens up so many possibilities.”
Brady, the ENG alum who is chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, met with Fontanez, Rubio, and the other Day One fellows at a weeklong summit this past summer at the new Amazon building in Boston’s Seaport district, where he explained the origin of the fellowship’s name.
“On your first day of a new job, you’re excited, you’re motivated,” says Rubio. “You’re willing to work and to innovate. So you should approach every day as day one.”
There is a strong likelihood that upon completing their Amazon internships or co-ops, the Day One fellows will score job offers within Amazon, but they are not required to work there.
“There are no strings attached to this fellowship,” says Fontanez. “From what I’ve seen, the company is looking at this altruistically. The bigger goal is to create great leaders in this space. Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter where those leaders end up. As long as they’re better leaders in the space of robotics, then robotics is going to be better overall.”
While Fontanez and Rubio are the first Amazon Day One Fellows at BU, they will not be the last. Amazon has committed to supporting two incoming students a year going forward.