Alan Rhodes graduated from Florida State magna cum laude in electrical engineering, then spent his career building the technology behind two NASA missions— the SOFIA flying observatory and the ACS3 solar sail, launched in 2024 to test propulsion powered by unlight. Colleagues remembered him as generous with what he knew, the kind of engineer who made the people around him better.
Alan died in 2024 at age 48. His mother, Dr. Martha Roberts, established this endowed scholarship to give future students in his field the same start he had.
A $60,000 endowment held by the FSU Foundation generates a $5,000 scholarship each year, in perpetuity, for a student in engineering, physics, mathematics, or chemistry at FSU or FAMU. Gifts to the fund grow the endowment and can increase the award over time.
