MELBOURNE, Australia – Dec. 15, 2016 – Global innovation and technology company Lockheed Martin has established a funding pool to attract Australia’s top postgraduate student researcher candidates to undertake research collaborations with the new Science, Technology, Engineering, Leadership and Research Laboratory (STELaRLab).

Lockheed Martin will sponsor up to 8 postgraduate student researchers at Masters and PhD level during the first year, with that number expected to increase to 20 when the program reaches its third year.

The STELaRLab postgraduate student research sponsorships will include a number of PhD ‘Top-ups,’ with projects expected to cover several fields including: Hypersonics; Information Science and Analytics; Space Systems research; Machine Reasoning; and Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems research.

According to Lockheed Martin Australia Chief Executive, Raydon Gates, the STELaRLab postgraduate student research sponsorship program is a critical component of Lockheed Martin’s long-term commitment to supporting R&D in Australia.

“Lockheed Martin has been directly supporting R&D in Australia for over 20 years, and we have invested almost $16 million in R&D in the last five years alone,” he said.

“This investment in the capabilities of our local Science and Technology ecosystem will provide significant advantages to our business, and allow us to continue to attract the talent necessary to advance scientific discovery and to meet the challenges and opportunities of an increasingly changing world.”

According to STELaRLab Director, Dr Tony Lindsay, the well-established, quality educational system in Australian universities was a key discriminator in the selection of Melbourne as the location for STELaRLab.

“STELaRLab postgraduate student research sponsorships will provide opportunities for Australia’s finest minds and academic institutions to investigate relevant problems, with unique access to Lockheed Martin’s global leading-edge R&D capability and partners,” he said.

“Our focus at STELaRLab is to understand tomorrow’s challenges, and pursue leading edge solutions that demonstrate the art of the possible in meeting those challenges.”

When it is officially opened in early 2017, STELaRLab will be the first multi-disciplinary R&D facility established by Lockheed Martin outside of the United States.

STELaRLab will constitute Lockheed Martin’s national Research & Development operations centre for its current University-based research portfolio in Australia, as well as undertaking both sponsored and internal R&D programs.

Selection for the inaugural round of STELaRLab postgraduate student research sponsorships has commenced, with the first recipients likely to be announced in March.

Learn more about STELaRLab.

About Lockheed Martin Australia

Headquartered in Canberra, Lockheed Martin Australia is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation. The company employs more than 1,000 people in Australia and New Zealand working on a wide range of major programmes spanning the aerospace, defence and civil sectors.