The University of Iowa Foundation has featured the long and growing partnership between Rockwell Collins, Inc. and the Operator Performance Laboratory, a research unit of the UI Center

The unique partnership between the University of Iowa College of Engineering and Rockwell Collins—an aerospace and defense engineering company headquartered in Cedar Rapids—spans more than 40 years and allows students like Johnson to work with faculty and professional engineers on relevant and challenging projects, using state-of-the-art technology. This creative dynamic, along with the company’s longtime philanthropic support for scholarships and research, has helped the college continue to grow.

Rockwell Collins is a leading destination for graduates: In the last five years, 100 UI engineering students have received full-time internships, and the firm has hired 72 UI engineering graduates.

Perhaps nowhere is the physical impact of Rockwell Collins more visually apparent than at the Iowa City airport, where UI associate professor and chief pilot Tom “Mach” Schnell presides over a fleet of two L-29 Delfin jet aircraft and an MI-2 twin turbine helicopter, among other research aircraft and simulators—some outfitted with state-of-the-art Rockwell Collins avionics.

To read the complete UI Foundation story, go to http://www.uifoundation.org/ai/soaring-to-new-heights/.