U-M students plug into Volt project

The most highly anticipated project out of Detroit is coming to the world soon thanks to some of the smartest students to come out of Ann Arbor.

Excerpt:

Twenty-two-year-old Ann Arbor native Merry Walker expected to be on the fast track out of Michigan after she earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan last year.

Then Ann Marie Sastry got to her. Sastry, a smart, feisty and convincing engineering professor, was starting a master’s program in energy systems engineering and wanted Walker and other bright young battery engineers to sign on.

It wouldn’t be just any old master’s program, she said — she was working with General Motors Corp. to provide the best and brightest young graduate students with an opportunity to break down hurdles in the way of launching electric vehicles.

Before she knew it, Walker was in. By the summer, she and nine other students from the new master’s battery program were working on GM’s Chevrolet Volt electric car.

It’s the kind of work that Sastry and GM executive director of global vehicle engineering Bob Kruse say could help the state keep its best and brightest students, provide a feeder program for battery engineers GM needs and make Michigan the global leader for battery and other advanced-propulsion work.

“The best and brightest from the University of Michigan didn’t historically stay in Michigan,” Kruse said.

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