Axalta Coating Systems announced it is hosting a kick-off event to welcome two interns from the University of Superior Technology Studies of Chimalhuacan in Mexico to its Research and Development Center at its Mt. Clemens, Mich., coating manufacturing plant.

The students, Victor Arellanes and Juan Carlos Zarate, are winners of the Axalta Mexico Science Award. They participated in the 2014 Science and Engineering Fair, sponsored by the State of Mexico’s Science and Technology Council of Mexico (COMECyT), and won for their project titled Recycled PET-based Pavement. They are the first winners to receive this inaugural award from Axalta that includes a summer internship. Arellanes and Zarate will work alongside Axalta researchers in Michigan and take part in the investigation of rheological agents that interact with automotive coatings. The third student who was on this winning team, Jorge Ivan Lobato, will intern at Axalta’s Research and Development Center in Tlalnepantla, Mexico.

“Axalta is an avid supporter of science, technology, engineering and mathematics education (STEM),” said Karin Becker, Axalta waterborne research supervisor. “It is our pleasure to provide students with hands-on experience in a manufacturing setting. We are happy to host the two winners of the Axalta Mexico Science Award.”

Arellanes added, “We are very excited about the internships at Axalta’s Michigan and Tlalnepantla Research and Development Centers. They offer us the opportunity to work with scientists and different machines and equipment that we would not have access to otherwise. We thank Axalta and COMECyT for giving us this opportunity, and especially for their support in encouraging and recognizing the talent that exists in Mexico.”