Special to The Hays Daily News

WICHITA -- Mallory Jennings, granddaughter of Lucille Jennings of Hays, is an engineering co-op student at Wichita State University and recently received the Cooperative Education and Internship Association's Cooperative Education Student Achievement Award.

The prestigious national annual award is given by CEIA to honor and recognize an outstanding co-op student. Previous students selected for the award come from universities including: Northeastern, University of Cincinnati, Drexel, University of Texas, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, University of Pennsylvania and others.

Jennings will receive her award this month at CEIA's National Conference in Boston, but recently was honored March 10 at a reception at Wichita State University.

For more information about the award, visit www.ceiainc.org/sub.asp?PageID=75.

For five semesters, Jennings worked as a co-op student at NASA's Johnson Space Center. While at NASA, Jennings also served as one of NASA's educational outreach presenters, helping to organize more than 50 outreach events and speaking to more than 4,500 people about NASA and the work being done at the center. Upon her return to Wichita State, Jennings continued her outreach efforts by organizing 25 presentations at local elementary and middle schools about NASA and the importance of studying mathematics and science. She will graduate with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in May and already has accepted a full-time position at NASA.