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GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE

AIAA winnersClark School undergraduate and graduate aerospace engineering (AE) students presented papers on various research projects at the 2010 AIAA Regional I-MA conference and swept the competition, snapping up first and second places in the undergraduate research category as well as first, second and third place in the graduate category. One of the first-place prizes was awarded to AE undergrads Laura Meyer and Justin Brannan, along with Heather Bradshaw (B.S. '09, mechanical engineering [ME]) who collaborated with an elite group of students from around the country as part of a multidisciplinary team of researchers at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, where they participated in a weeklong simulated mission to Mars. Bradshaw, who will return to the Clark School as a graduate student in the fall, was named chief engineer for the mission.

Fernando RaffanAE student Fernando Raffan won $500 for his video, "An Engineer Recycling Water," in the graduate student category of the Clark School's 2010 Engineering Sustainability Workshop Video Contest. In the undergraduate category, electrical and computer engineering (ECE) student Adi Lang won first prize of $500 for "Flush Smarter." The focus of the workshop was on water sustainability.

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GRADUATE

Kimberly StrokaGraduate Program in Bioengineering (BioE) student Kimberly Stroka (pictured), advised by Assistant Professor Helim Aranda-Espinoza (BioE), has received the National Institutes of Health Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award. The award, a predoctoral fellowship, which includes a stipend, tuition, and allowances for health insurance, travel and materials, will fund her final two years of graduate school.

Monica SyalMonica Syal (pictured) and Ria Malhan (AE) have been awarded Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellowship for the 2010 –2011 academic year. These fellowships are granted annually to women who demonstrate a superior academic record in aerospace-related sciences and engineering. Fellowship recipients are awarded $10,000, which may be used to cover tuition, books and living expenses.

umdDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering graduate students Michael Mercado (B.S. ‘10), an incoming M.S. student in structural engineering, and Michael Maness, a M.S. student in transportation engineering, received prestigious Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowships from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Sophoria "Nikki" Westmoreland, ME Ph.D. candidate, has been named the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Mike Shinn Distinguished Member of the Year (Female) and the Graduate Student of the Year for 2010. The Mike Shinn Distinguished Member of the Year award is presented each year to one male and one female member of NSBE that have exemplified all that the NSBE mission embodies. The Graduate Student of the Year award is given to a graduate student who displays exceptional academic achievements, extracurricular activities, personal accomplishments and leadership in engineering or other technical fields.

Clara Man Cheung, CEE and project management master’s student, won the Gaylord E. Christle Scholarship from the Project Management Institute.

"Integrated Silicon-PDMS Process for Microrobot Mechanisms," a paper written by ME graduate students Aaron P. Gerratt and Ivan Penskiy and Assistant Professor Sarah Bergbreiter (ME/Institute for Systems Research [ISR]), won the Best Conference Paper Award at the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

Daniel Garcia-Romero, an ECE Ph.D. student of Professor Carol Espy-Wilson (ECE/ISR), won the Speech Communication Best Student Paper Award at the Joint 159th Acoustical Society of America Meeting and Noise-Con 2010. Garcia-Romero was honored for his work, "Speech Forensics: Automatic Acquisition Device Identification."

A paper written by ECE graduate student Kun Lin, alumna Enlu Zhou (M.S. ’08, electrical engineering) and Professors Michael Fu (ECE/ISR/business) and Steve Marcus (ECE/ISR), won the Best Theoretical Paper Award at the 2009 Winter Simulation Conference. The paper was titled "A Numerical Method for Financial Decision Problems under Stochastic Volatility."

An article, “A survey of snake-inspired robot designs,” written by ME Ph.D. students James K. Hopkins and Brent W. Spranklin and Professor S.K. Gupta (ME/ISR) was selected to be part of the journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics’ “Highlights of 2009” collection.

Graduate student Konstantinos (Kostas) Gerasopoulos (materials science and engineering [MSE]), advised by Professor Reza Ghodssi (ECE/ISR), was a featured speaker in the Micro/Nano Seminar Series presented by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Department of Mechanical Engineering. Gerasopoulos's seminar was titled "Nanostructured Materials Using the Tobacco Mosaic Virus: Applications in Batch Nanomanufacturing and Electrochemical Energy Storage."

ECE graduate students Vikramjit Mitra and Yufu Zhang have been awarded 2010-2011 Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowships. Mitra is advised by Professor Carol Espy-Wilson (ECE/ISR), while Zhang is advised by Professor Ankur Srivastava (ECE). Mitra's research focuses on signal processing and innovative approaches toward robust speech recognition. Zhang's research focuses on the power/thermal issues of today's high performance multi-core processors.

Two ECE Ph.D. students, Geunmin Ryu and Sung Jun Yoon, received Graduate Student Summer Research Fellowships for summer 2010. The Summer Research Fellowships program, a companion program to the Flagship Fellowships and the Wylie Dissertation Fellowships that is now in its third year, enables doctoral students to devote a summer of focused work to prepare for or complete a benchmark in their programs' requirements.

ECE Ph.D. student George Zaki has been selected as a Texas Instruments Scholar. He is an advisee of Professor Shuvra Bhattacharyya (ECE).

The Center for Teaching Excellence awarded 2009-10 Distinguished Teaching Assistant Certificates to seven ECE graduate teaching assistants: Beiyu Rong, Eduardo Arvelo, Filiz Yesilkoy, George Zaki, Muhammad Umer Ikram, Wei-Hong Chuang and Yufu Zhang.

Matt Dowling (BioE) won first prize in the Clark School Dean's Doctoral Research Awards Competition for his research, "Blueprinting Self-Assembled Soft Matter: An 'Easy' Approach to Advanced Biomaterial Synthesis in Drug Delivery and Tissue Engineering."

Jessica Rajkowski (ME) won first prize in the Clark School Dean's Master's Student Research Awards Competition for "Rapid Polymer Prototyping for Applications in Low Cost and Robust Microrobots."

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UNDERGRADUATE

RAVEN TeamIn the largest Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concept-Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) field of all time, a Clark School-Arizona State University team took first place in the undergraduate division for their project, "Robotic Assist Vehicle for Extraterrestrial Navigation (RAVEN)." 2010 marks the third straight year Clark School undergraduates have placed first in the competition.

Baja SAE team 2010A team of Clark School mechanical engineering students placed fourth overall and first out of the U.S. teams at the 2010 Baja SAE Carolina competition at the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research.


Dylan ReboisDylan Rebois, a junior ME major, was named one of this year's Truman Scholars by the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. The $30,000 merit-based scholarship is presented each year to college juniors who have demonstrated outstanding leadership and wish to attend graduate school in preparation for careers in government or public service. Rebois is one of 60 students so honored across the country. Rebois also received a prestigious Udall Scholarship, which recognizes future leaders across a wide spectrum of environmental fields. He is one of 80 student recipients in the country to be so honored.

Clark School undergraduate students Alexander Leishman (AE) and Ethan Schaler (ME) have been awarded 2010-11 Goldwater Scholarships. The Goldwater Scholarship is the premier national award granted to undergraduate students majoring in mathematics, natural sciences and engineering who are interested in research careers.

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering sophomore Apoorv Gupta received a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Research Fellowship for his proposed study of a form of intercellular communication known as quorum sensing. Gupta, who double-majors in cell biology and genetics, is advised by Fischell Department of Bioengineering Professor and Chair William Bentley, and conducts his work in Bentley's Biomolecular and Metabolic Engineering Laboratories.

MSE undergraduate Coit Hendley IV received a Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship from the Department of Defense (DoD). The highly selective SMART program was established to support the education of the nation's future scientists and engineers, and to increase the number of civilian scientists and engineers employed by the DoD.

A poster created by students participating in the Maryland Engineering Research Internship Teams-Biosystems Internships for Engineers undergraduate summer research program earned two awards at a recent meeting for the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer, Information Science & Engineering Research Experiences for Undergraduates program. The poster, titled “Robust Speech Recognition,” was created by undergraduate researchers Rob Bailey and Wody Edji, who were mentored by Professor Carol Espy-Wilson (ECE/ISR) and her graduate student advisee Vikram Mitra. The poster received the awards for most interesting project and most technically challenging project.

CEE undergraduate students Chelsea Sprague, Theodore Tan and Selme Yilma received scholarships from the Associated Builders and Contractors Metro Washington Chapter.

The U.S. Air Force awarded internships to Jason Tseng (computer engineering) and electrical engineering (EE) students Jeffery Gunnarsson, Ebsan Uddin, Nadav Rosen and Binyam Abeye as part of the USAF Summer Technical Internship Recruiting Program.

Elizabeth Kenyon, an EE student with an international engineering minor, and Ashley Lidie, a senior participating in the department’s five-year bachelor’s/master’s program, are the recipients of the A. James Clark School of Engineering Dean’s Award. Kenyon graduated with a 4.0 GPA. She interned at the National Institute for Standards and Technology and Wabtec Railway Electronics, and participated in the Computer Security Scholars Summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates program. She served as a Clark School Ambassador, Leader of ECE, tutor for the FLEXUS program and an Undergraduate Teaching Fellow. Lidie will begin her graduate work on solid oxide fuel cells under the direction of Professor Eric Wachsman (MSE). Her research at the Army Research Laboratory has led to several publications and presentations at national and international conferences. She is a member of several student organizations and the Alpha Sigma Mu honor society.

Allon Meizlik is the recipient of the Clark School's Kim A. Borsavage and Pamela J. Stone Student Award for Outstanding Service. Allon has a GPA of 3.85 and is a BioE major with minors in international engineering and engineering leadership development. He previously received the Benjamin T. Rome Scholarship and the Diane M. Berman Memorial Award. Meizlik is a peer advisor with the Clark School's international engineering programs and a Clark School Ambassador. He has interned at LRA Worldwide and Discovery Labs in addition to studying abroad in London.

Dylan G. Rebois (ME) received the A. James Clark School of Engineering Leadership Award. He is a rising senior with a 4.0 GPA. For Engineers Without Borders he served as design lead in Burkina Faso and project lead in Ethiopia. His interest and leadership in sustainability are reflected through his membership in the Student Sustainability Committee, appointment to the Student Subcommittee of the University Sustainability Council, and participation in the University Climate Action Plan Workgroup. Rebois is conducting research with Professor Christopher Cadou (AE) on micro-combustion visualization.

Ethan W. Schaler (ME) received the Kim A. Borsavage and Pamela J. Stone Student Award for Outstanding Service. He is a rising senior with a 4.0 GPA. Schaler is active in Engineers Without Borders, working on the Burkina Faso and Peru projects and co-leading a local project focused on storm-water management on the Anacostia River. He recently returned from Japan, having devoted two summers to research at RIKEN and a semester of study at Tohoku University. Schaler currently conducts research with Assistant Professor Sarah Bergbreiter (ME/ISR) on MEMS fabrication.

Melanie Wong (CEE) received the A. James Clark School of Engineering International Student Award. She has a 3.87 GPA. Wong has participated in the Gemstone Program and the QUEST Program and has interned with the U.S. Department of Energy and Post, Buckley, Shuh & Jernigan, Inc. She is vice president of the Society of Women Engineers and the American Society of Civil Engineers, served as an alternative spring break trip leader to New Orleans and is a member of Alpha Omega Epsilon Engineering Sorority.

BioE senior Omar Ayyub, advised by Professor Peter Kofinas, is the recipient of the 2010 Outstanding ASPIRE Student Research Award for his work on polymer-based hydrogels that can selectively bind hemoglobin. ASPIRE, A Scholars Program for Industry-Oriented Research in Engineering, run by the A. James Clark School of Engineering, offers students the opportunity to move beyond the classroom by working with engineering faculty or staff on real-world engineering projects.

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