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SMART Scholarship awardee Catherine Argentina aims to utilize her engineering skills in support of the American warfighter. |
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Rising senior Catherine Argentina, winner of a highly competitive Department of War (DoW) (Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) scholarship, aspires to support the American warfighter for reasons that are in part personal.
Her great-grandfather, Pvt. Joseph Houlihan, served as a tail gunner on a Martin B-26 Marauder that was shot down over France during World War II. Houlihan survived and spent the remainder of the war evading capture. Generations later, Argentina traveled as a teenager to the site of the shoot-down—and was able to retrieve fragments of the crashed plane using a metal detector.
“I have a piece at home,” Argentina said. “He sheltered in various parts of France after his plane went down and we were able to retrace his journey, visiting the locations where he stayed.”
She said she is grateful for the opportunity she’ll have, under the SMART program, to gain hands-on experience in a national security context. She’ll be paired with a mentor and become a civilian employee of the U.S. Navy after graduation, working to advance critical technologies that help the Navy maintain its edge.
Argentina’s great-grandfather, Pvt. Joseph Houlihan, served as a tail gunner on a Martin B-26 Marauder that was shot down over France during World War II.
She’ll also receive a full tuition scholarship and an annual stipend to support her in her senior year.
In return, the Navy will be gaining the capabilities of a talented UMD mechanical engineering student who was drawn to STEM fields at an early age. She chose mechanical engineering, she said, because of its breadth—the degree provides highly transportable skills that can support a wide range of engineering-related careers.
It’s also a major that keeps students on their toes, Argentina said.
“It’s a difficult major that requires time management. The classes have gotten harder each year, but I’ve also gotten better at managing them and knowing what to expect,” she said.
Beyond ME. a highlight for her at UMD has been a course she took as a freshman as part of the First-Year Innovation & Research Experience (FIRE) program.
Like her SMART scholarship, her FIRE experience aligned with her interest in the military, though in a different way—the course’s focus was on music from the 1970s, and Argentina participated in a group project that explored how Vietnam War opponents and supporters expressed themselves through song.
“It was an eye-opener,” Argentina recalls. “Public opinion was very polarized, and both sides used music to express their beliefs and connect with a larger cause.”
Three years later, Argentina has now joined the ranks of scholarship winners in one of the most competitive programs in the nation, one that plays a pivotal role in developing the future STEM workforce by recruiting and developing top-talent for the DoW. “it’s an incredible honor,” she said.
July 21, 2026
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