OU Student Receives Boren Award for International Study

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University of Oklahoma junior Benjamin Korty of Denver has won the Boren Award for International Study, sponsored by the National Security Education Program. Korty is the 31st OU student to receive the award since the program began in 1994.

Boren Scholarships, named for David L. Boren, OU’s 13th president and former Oklahoma governor and U.S. senator, focus on geographic areas, languages and fields of study deemed critical to U.S. national security. The awards provide up to $20,000 in funding to undergraduate students to study abroad. This year, 791 undergraduate students applied for the Boren Scholarship and 194 received the award.

“I am thrilled that an outstanding OU student, Benjamin Korty, has won the national study abroad fellowship, which I worked to create while in the U.S. Senate,” said OU President David L. Boren. 

Korty is pursuing a major in electrical engineering with minors in physics and math. He will study from October 2017 to August 2018 at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo, Japan. Before traveling to Japan, he will intern for L3 Mustang Technologies in Plano, Texas. His previous internships include Ball Aerospace and Karcher, North America, both in Boulder, Colorado.

At OU, Korty is a member of the Honors College and the OU chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. For the past year, he has been the research assistant for Jessica Ruyle, OU assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. A National Merit Scholar, he also has received a scholarship from the OU School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Korty plans to pursue a career with the U.S. Department of Defense in research and development of communications and intelligence systems.

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