Graduate and Undergraduate

The Clark School Engineers Without Borders chapter (including graduate and undergraduate students) has won two awards for its water supply and constructed wetlands project in Brazil: the Santander Banespa Award for Science & Innovation (recognizing social responsibility) and the Premio Brazil de Meio Ambiente for Better Work with Water, sponsored by the Journal do Brasil, Petrobas and ForbesBrazil. Also, Sarah Ness (undergrad, civil engineering), chapter president for the upcoming academic year, was selected to be student coordinator for the newly created Engineers Without Borders Southeast Regional Technical Advisory Committee.

The Clark School took second place in both the graduate and undergraduate divisions of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts - Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) space design competition. The RASC-AL Forum provides an opportunity for student design teams to present revolutionary design projects to peers and representatives from NASA and industry.

Graduate

Mechanical engineering (ME) Ph.D. candidate Gayatri Cuddalorepatta and reliability engineering Ph.D. candidate Zahra Mohaghegh both earned the 2007-2008 Amelia Earhart International Award in recognition of and support for their doctoral research. Cuddalorepatta is advised by Professor Abijit Dasgupta (ME). Mohaghegh is advised by Professor Ali Mosleh (ME).



Eric Greenwood II (aerospace engineering [AE]) is the first winner of the NASA/American Helicopter Society (AHS) Lichten Internship Award. Greenwood was selected based on his paper, "Helicopter External Noise Radiation in Turning Flight: Theory and Experiment." As the award winner, Greenwoon will participate in an eight-week internship at one of three NASA Centers executing the NASA Subsonic Rotary Wing Project within the Aeronautical Research Mission Directorate's Fundamental Aeronautics Program.


Shane Jacobs (AE) has received a full scholarship to attend the International Space University (ISU) Summer Session Program in Beijing, China. Jacobs was chosen to represent his home country, Canada, by the Canadian Federation for ISU. The program is two months of intense lectures, seminars, group projects and international networking, hosted by a different country each year.



Sanaz Adl, an ECE Ph.D. candidate, earned the Best Student Paper Award at the 2007 IEEE Sensors Applications Symposium. The winning paper was titled "Low noise pre-amplifier/amplifier chain for high capacitance sensors." The award, sponsored by the IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Society, includes a monetary award, a one-year student membership in the IEEE, and designation as an IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Student Ambassador. Adl is advised by ECE Professor Martin Peckerar.

Sean Gahagan (ME and Institute for Systems Research [ISR]) won first place in the Institute of Industrial Engineers Lean Student Paper Competition for his paper, "Adding Value to Value Stream Mapping; A Simulation Model Template for VSM." He is a Ph.D. student of Associate Professor Jeffrey Herrmann (ME/ISR).

Sarah Haack (AE) won second place at the 2007 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Regional Conference Awards for her paper titled "Comparison of Active Flow Control on Bluff Body Shapes." Haack's advisor is Alison Flatau (AE).

Graduate researchers from the Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) Sensors and Actuators Lab, directed by Associate Professor Reza Ghodssi (electrical and computer engineering [ECE]/ISR), shared first prize at the third annual IEEE Lasers & Electro-Optics Society Baltimore and Washington-Northern Virginia Graduate Student Poster Competition. Ghodssi and his co-authors, including Nathan Siwak (ECE), Xiao Fan (ECE) and Professor Neil Goldsman (ECE/ISR), won the award for their research, titled "Chemical Sensor Utilizing Indium Phosphide Cantilevers and Pentacene as an Absorbing Layer."

Ph.D. candidate George Theodorakopoulos (ECE/ISR) will be joining the Communications Laboratory at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne as a postdoctoral research fellow.

Kenneth Ho, an M.S. student in ECE, has been selected as a 2007 Texas Instruments Scholar. Ho is an advisee of Associate Professor Min Wu (ECE/University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies [UMIACS]). The program supports talented graduate students in electrical and computer engineering with a tuition grant, stipend, and benefits.

Materials science and engineering (MSE) graduate student Daniel Janiak has been named the 2007 recipient of the Fischell Fellowship in Biomedical Engineering. The fellowship is a unique opportunity for talented and innovative graduate students interested in applied research and product design in the biomedical industry.

ME Ph.D. candidate Arindam Goswami was awarded the Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship by the Graduate School of the University of Maryland. The award supports Goswami's research in "Quantitative Assessment of Hermeticity of Micro- to Nano-liter Scale Packages." After graduating, he intends to apply his research to the characterization of current and future advanced MEMS packages. Goswami is advised by Professor Bongtae Han (ME).

ME graduate student Arun Kota earned the Award of Excellence in the Mechanics, Modeling, and Predictions category at the Graduate Research Interaction Day at the University of Maryland. His research in a "Combinatorial Approach to Develop and Characterize Multifunctional Polymer Nanocomposites" was judged to offer the best approach to diverse practical problems in the category. Kota is advised by Associate Professor Hugh Bruck, and works closely with Associate Professor David Bigio (ME).

Miriam Meghirbi (B.S. '04, electrical engineering), a graduate student in the Clark School's telecommunications program, was named the university's Graduate Assistant Academic Advisor of the Year.

Five ECE students were selected for Clark School graduate fellowship awards. Mohamed Fahmi, advised by Kawthar Zaki (ECE), was chosen as the winner of the Clark School Litton Industries Fellowship. Four other students were selected as ECE Distinguished Dissertation Fellows including Shan He, advised by Min Wu (ECE/UMIACS); Vishal Khandelwal, advised by Ankur Srivastava (ECE); and Peng Qiu and Ahmed Sadek, both advised by K. J. Ray Liu (ECE/ISR).

ECE graduate students Yashwanth Hemaraj and Omkar Dandekar, and ECE Adjunct Professor Raj Shekhar, (University of Maryland School of Medicine), were winners in the Faculty and Graduate Student Division of the University of Maryland $50K Business Plan Competition. The team put together a new company called Accelign that is developing technology that quickly fuses or "registers" medical images from multiple sources to create a single, three-dimensional image. Remedium Technologies Inc., a company developing nanotechnology-based active wound care products, took 2nd place. Remedium team members include: Bani H. Cipriano, chemical and biomolecular engineering (CBE) graduate student; Peter Thomas, bioengineering (BioE) graduate student; Matthew Dowling, BioE graduate student; Oluwatosin Ogunsola, CBE research associate; Chao Zhu, CBE research associate; Srinivasa Raghavan, CBE assistant professor; and Akinola Dosunmu, CFA, CPA.

Undergraduate

Bradley Johnson, AE senior honors student, is the recipient of the prestigious 2007 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship. He will receive a monetary award of over $90,000 for the next three years. The NDSEG Fellowship is sponsored and funded by the Department of Defense.



ECE undergraduates Waseem Malik (pictured, left) and Chad Ropp (pictured, right) have received the International Engineering Consortium's 2007 William L. Everitt Student Award of Excellence. The award honors outstanding seniors in electrical and computer engineering at universities across the country who are in the top 10 percent of their class and have an interest in the communications field.

Nicholas Yerkes (AE) won first place at the 2007 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Regional Conference Awards for his paper titled "Pneumatic Artificial Muscle Activation for Trailing Edge Flaps." Also at the AIAA awards, Emil Superfin and David Billingsley, both AE undergrads, tied for third place. Superfin's paper was titled "Evaluation of an Image-Interpolation Technique for Optic-Flow Estimation in Navigation Applications" and Billingsley's was titled "Passive Wing Morphing For Improved Lift In Flapping Wing Ornithopters."

MSE undergraduate Maeling Tapp was profiled on Engineer Girl, a web site run by the National Academy of Engineering. Engineer Girl provides information on disciplines and careers, sponsors contests, profiles women in engineering majors and working in the field, and offers parents and students the opportunity to have their questions answered by participating engineers.

Leslie Woll (AE), 2nd Lieutenant (U.S. Air Force), participated in a joint-Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) commissioning ceremony at the White House. Woll,who was recommended by her ROTC battalion and her department for the honor, received a distinguished graduate award at the ceremony. She is a past recipient of the Bronze Medal from the American Society of Military Engineers and the Gold General Military Excellence Award from the American Legion.

At the University of Maryland Annual Awards Program, the following engineering undergraduates were recognized: Timothy Lee (AE) won the Colonel J. Logan Schutz Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK) Leader of the Year Award and H.C. Byrd Award and was inducted into the Maryland Medallion Society; James Seppi (computer engineering), John Wurwas (electrical engineering) and Holly Schurter (AE) were recognized as ODK Spring 2007 Initiates; Jessica Bermudez (BioE) was named an ODK Top Ten Freshman; Jazalyn Dukes (civil and environmental engineering [CEE]) won the Kirwan Award; Maeling Tapp (MSE) won the Office of Multi-ethnic Student Education Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Service Award; Alexander Perry (ME) won the Lorde-O'Leary Award; Kyle Carson (ME) won the Nyumburu Cultural Center James Otis Williams Culture Leadership Award; and Steven Hoffenson and Samuel Hollenbach (both ME) were named Byrd/Elks Finalists and were inducted into the Maryland Medallion Society.

David Crawford, an undergraduate electrical and computer engineering (ECE) student, together with a 2002 ECE B.S. alumna, are in the news for helping to develop a prototype wireless device that efficiently monitors emergency room patients' vital signs. The students won second place and the Entrepreneurial Vision Award at the Spirit of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (SEED) competition in March. The team was also recently featured on CNN and in The Baltimore Examiner for their invention, and won the University of Maryland Business Plan Competition in the Young Alumni category. The students have been advised by James V. Green, director of the Hinman CEOs program, and Karen Thornton, former director of the program, and current director of the new Hillman Entrepreneurs Program.

Engineering undergraduate students swept the First Annual University of Maryland Undergraduate Science/Engineering/Technology Video Competition this April. Ali Husain, Heather Bradshaw and Adam Mirvis (all AE) won 1st place for "MX-2 Space Suit Analogue." Edward Dechaumphai (ME) and Jonathan Chung (ECE) won 2nd place for "Bringing the Future to the Present: Flexible Macroelectronics." Finally, a team of Gemstone students, including many engineering students, won third place for "Examining Fire Safety of On-Campus Housing." Engineering students won in three other categories as well. The winning videos will be shown on the University of Maryland web site and distributed to school systems in Maryland.

Jazalyn D. Dukes (CEE) received the Clark School's Dinah Berman Memorial Award, which is presented to an engineering student who has combined academic excellence with demonstrated leadership or service to the Clark School as a freshman and sophomore.

Eli Goldstein (ME) received the Clark School's Leadership Award, which is presented to a student for outstanding leadership in the Clark School.

Mai Li (ME) received the Clark School's International Student Award, which is presented to a student who demonstrates significant involvement in international engineering activities through leadership or service.

Stephanie A. Karpovitch (ME) received the Kim A. Borsavage and Pamela J. Stone Student Award for Outstanding Service for her service and dedication to the Clark School.

Timothy E. Lee (AE) received the Clark School's Engineering Dean's Award, which is presented to a senior for academic excellence, leadership and service to the Clark School.