Recognized for his work on next-generation defense projects, Cornell alumnus Earl Valencia was honored in February as a "New Face of Engineering" by the National Engineers Week Foundation, a 70-member coalition of corporations, government agencies and other groups.

Valencia, who received a master's degree in systems engineering in 2005 from Cornell, works for Raytheon Co., a Massachusetts-based defense and aerospace systems company. Valencia is a systems engineer in Raytheon's space and airborne systems division.

National Engineers Week chooses 15 young engineers each year for the award, which recognizes "outstanding abilities and leadership."

According to Raytheon officials, Valencia has had a hand in critical defense projects sponsored by the U.S. military, including the design phase of the DDG 1000 Next Generation Naval Destroyer and the Ballistic Missile Defense Radar.

As a systems engineer, he has played an active role in developing proposals and has led a major process improvement initiative for a factory that produces airborne radar antennas.

Along the way, he has developed technical and leadership capabilities that have led to his acceptance in Raytheon's Engineering Leadership Development Program (RELDP), which provides select recent graduates with challenging assignments and a personal development plan to meet their fullest potential as technologists and managers.

Valencia's RELDP experience has led to assignments with Raytheon's Network Centric Systems business in St. Petersburg, Fla., and its Space and Airborne Systems business in McKinney, Texas; and, currently, in El Segundo, Calif.

Valencia is also active outside the laboratory. As a former president and current officer of Raytheon's Young Engineer and Scientists Network, he advocates for mathematics and science at all levels. He has been a Big Brother mentor, given talks from middle school to college on the excitement of the engineering profession, and served as a judge for a middle school robotics league. His current Ph.D. research looks at the expectations young engineers have on leaders and the strategies they can employ to become effective leaders of tomorrow.

Before coming to Cornell, Valencia earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Boston University.