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GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE
 The Gamera human-powered helicopter
team received the Igor I. Sikorsky International Trophy from the American Helicopter
Society International for designing and building a new, record-setting helicopter. The
College Park Aviation Museum has an exhibit on the Gamera I world
record-setting flights.
 A multi-disciplinary team of Clark School graduate and undergraduate
students led by faculty advisor Greg Jackson (mechanical engineering [ME])
received the grand prize in the U.S.
Department of Energy Hydrogen Design Contest. The contest, which had entries from 28 universities
representing nine different countries, involved designing a combined heat, hydrogen, and power
plant for a university campus, using locally available waste resources for primary energy input.
 Clark School aerospace engineering (AE) students took first place
in two awards categories at the
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Mid-Atlantic Student Conference:
Master’s Category:
First Place – Erica Hocking (pictured) “Fabrication and Characterization of Small-scale Pneumatic
Artificial Muscles for a Bio-Inspired Robotic Hand” (Advisor: Prof. Norman Wereley)
Undergraduate Category:
First Place – Elena Shrestha: “Autonomous Hover Capability of a
Cycloidal Rotor Micro Air
Vehicle” (Advisors: Research Associate Moble Benedict and Prof.
Inderjit Chopra)
Materials science and engineering (MSE) Ph.D. student Brendan Hanrahan and undergraduate
researchers Jeremy Feldman (electrical and computer engineering [ECE]) and Saswat Misra (ECE)
from the MEMS Sensors and Actuators Laboratory won the Best Student Poster Award at the 2012 Mid
Atlantic Micro/Nano Alliance Symposium for their research, “Off-the-Shelf MEMS for Rotary MEMS.”
GRADUATE:
External
 The following incoming, current
and former Clark School students have received
National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships, which recognize and
support outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics disciplines:
• Matthew Bakalar
(computer engineering)
• Justin Michael Bare (electrical engineering [EE])
• Harrison Chau (AE)
• Artem Dementyev (bioengineering [BioE])
• Eric Epstein (MSE)
• Olatunji Godo (MSE)
• Hanna Nilsson (grad student; MSE)
• Christine He (chemical and biomolecular engineering [ChBE])
• Kelley Marie Heffner (BioE)
• Saara Anwar Khan (EE)
• Robin Klomparens (AE)
• Andrew Sabelhaus (ME)
• Pamela Sanchez (grad student; ME)
• Phillip Sandborn (EE)
• Victoria Stefanelli (BioE)
• Sean Symon (AE)
• Carol Wong (ME)
The number of undergraduate
students who received fellowships this year doubled from last year.
 Clark School MSE graduate student Colin Gore, advised by
MSE professor and University of Maryland Energy Research Center director Eric Wachsman,
has been awarded a 2012-2013 Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Hesse Endowment
Fellowship for his proposal to improve the fuel flexibility of low-temperature solid
oxide fuel cells.
 Clark School BioE alumnus and graduate student Omar
Ayyub (B.S. ’10), advised by
BioE professor Peter Kofinas, has been selected to receive a 2012 National Defense
Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship.
The Technology Partnership Programs
selected Noah Blum (civil and environmental engineering [CEE]) to receive a 2012 Dwight
David Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship.
Kristy Schlueter
(AE) and her advisor,
Assistant Professor Anya Jones, are participating in this year’s Air Force Office of
Scientific Research Summer Faculty Fellowship Program.
Dan Waters and
Robert Vocke (AE) received Science, Mathematics
and Research for Transformation Fellowships.
A team of eight students from the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering won first place in the Academic Category of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Prognostics and Health Management 2012 Prognostic Challenge. The CALCE team successfully predicted the remaining useful life of bearings in rotating machines. The team included Arvind Vasan, Edwin Sutrisno, Wei He, Moon-Hwan Chang, Jing Tian, Yan Ning, Hyunseok Oh, and Surya Kunche. They are all students working with Prof. Michael Pecht, the founder and director of CALCE.
BioE graduate student Chia-Pin Liang, advised by BioE assistant professor Yu Chen, was presented with a 2012 Optical Coherence Tomography News Student Travel Grant Award for his presentation on a new bioimaging probe developed at the Clark School. The probe, for use in neurosurgery, can produce detailed, real-time images from deep inside the brain.
BioE graduate student Janet Hsu won a scholarship from the World Organization for Rare Lysosomal Disorders to attend its 8th annual meeting for her award-winning abstract “Enhanced Kidney and Heart Delivery of α-Galactosidase by Modulating Enzyme Load and Carrier Bulk-Concentration of ICAM-1-Targeted Nanocarriers.”
ChBE graduate student Pushkar Pendse, advised by ChBE assistant professor Jeffery Klauda, received a travel award from Chemical Society of Washington that helped fund his trip to the American Chemical Society’s annual March Meeting. Pendse delivered an oral presentation titled “Study of Ligand Binding Thermodynamics and Proton Translocation in Lactose Permease of Escherichia coli” at the conference.
ME Ph.D. student Harish Ganapathy was selected to receive one of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineer’s Graduate Grant-in-Aid awards worth $10,000 to fund his research in HVAC and refrigeration.
Preeti Chauhan (ME) won the Best Student Paper Award at the 2012 Society for Mechanical Failures Prevention Technology Prognostics and Health Management Solutions Conference for “Canary Approach for Monitoring BGA Interconnect Reliability under Temperature Cycling,” co-authored with Associate Research Scientist Michael Osterman and Professor Michael Pecht.
Ravi Garg, an ECE graduate student, and Avinash L. Varna (M.S. ’09 and Ph.D. ’11, EE) received a Best Student Paper Award in the ACM Multimedia 2011 Conference for “‘Seeing’ ENF: Natural Time Stamp for Digital Video via Optical Sensing and Signal Processing.”
ME graduate student Jeffrey Williams won first place among graduate students in the physics, nanoscience, and materials science division at the 2012 Emerging Researchers National Conference in STEM for his oral presentation on extracting viscoelastic material information using atomic force microscopy.
Graduate student Matthew Mosteller (Institute for Systems Research [ISR]) and his co-authors Associate Professor Mark Austin (CEE), Research Associate Shah-An Yang (ISR) and ISR director Reza Ghodssi won the Brian Mar Best Student Paper Award at the 22nd Annual International Symposium of the International Council on Systems Engineering for “Platforms for Engineering Experimental Biomedical Systems.”
ME Ph.D. student Zhijian Zhang won first place at the Student Poster Competition in Optics and Photonics of the D.C.-Northern Va. and Baltimore chapters of IEEE Photonics Society, along with UMD’s Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers and Optical Society of America (OSA) student chapter and the National Capital Section of OSA. Zhang’s poster focused on investigating fiber optic tweezers for nano/microscale particle manipulation.
Fire protection engineering
graduate students Haiqing Guo and
Paul M. Anderson, along with their advisor, Associate Professor
Peter Sunderland, won first place in the Art Image Competition at the Central
States Section of the Combustion Institute with an image of a ternary flame system.
View news article.
Research by ChBE graduate
student Aaron Fisher describing a solid polymer
electrolyte for lithium ion batteries has earned a place among the Journal of Power Sources’
“Hottest Articles” for the fourth quarter of 2011.
GRADUATE:
Internal
 CEE students Woon Kim (pictured) and
Poornima Natarajan received Ann G. Wylie
Dissertation Fellowship awards. Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowships are one-semester awards
intended to support outstanding doctoral students who are in the final stages of writing their
dissertation and whose primary source of support is unrelated to their dissertation.
 Four Clark School students won energy research fellowships: Raphael Mandel,
a second-year Ph.D. student in ME, and Andrew Quinn, a first-year ChBE Ph.D.
student, received 2012 Hulka Energy Research Fellowships. Marshall Schroeder, a first-year
MSE Ph.D. candidate, and Will Gibbons, a ChBE third-year student, each received 2012 John
and Maureen Hendricks Energy Research Fellowships.
 Zhao Zhang (ME) won the second annual University of Maryland
Distinguished Dissertation Award in Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering. His research
focused on a new material, graphene, and how to control it using extrinsic regulation to create
reliable electronics using this material.
ChBE graduate student Deepa Subramanian,
advised by Professor Mikhail Anisimov, won the “Pushing the Boundaries of Science”
division at the University of Maryland’s 2012 Graduate Research and Interaction Day for her presentation,
based on a segment of her dissertation research that outlines how to create colloidal systems that remain
stable over long periods of time. Subramanian also won a travel award to attend the Gordon Research
Conference on Colloid, Macromolecular, and Polyelectrolyte Solutions to present a poster titled
“Mesoscale Inhomogeneities in Aqueous Solutions of Small Molecules.”
Matthew Stamm (ECE) received
the Clark School’s 2012 Dean’s Doctoral Research Award for outstanding research on digital
multimedia forensics.
Matthew Mosteller (ISR)
received the 2012 Dean’s Master’s Student Research Award for outstanding research on development
of a microfluidic platform for the growth, monitoring and experimental treatment of bacterial
biofilms.
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UNDERGRADUATE
 CEE junior Erin Hylton is a Udall Scholar for 2012, in recognition
of her work in environmental studies.
 Clark School junior Carlos Casarez, ME, has been awarded a
Goldwater Scholarship, the premier national award granted to undergraduate students majoring in
mathematics, natural sciences and engineering who are interested in research careers.
 Clark School ChBE sophomore Lisa Wiest has been awarded a
Boren Scholarship to spend the 2012-2013 academic year studying Korean at Yonsei University
in Seoul, South Korea.
Clark School BioE sophomore Mian Khalid (who also majors in English) has been awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate
Research Fellowship to further the development of a lighter, safer, and flexible solid polymer
electrolyte option for lithium-ion batteries.
MSE junior Elizabeth Ashley received a National Institute of Standards and Technology Summer
Undergraduate Research Fellowship. She will conduct research on the use of polymer thin
films in semiconductors at the Material Measurement Laboratory.
BioE junior Joshua Thompson, advised by Associate Professor John Fisher, received a Howard
Hughes Medical Institute International Research Program grant.
ChBE students Karen Dunford, Yelena Leznik, Justin Owens, Meron Tesfaye and Majid Waheed were selected from a nationwide field of “exceptional sophomores and juniors” majoring in
chemistry and chemical engineering to receive five of the 29 summer internships offered
by the SCI Scholars program.
The Post-Tensioning Institute selected Timothy Briner (CEE) to receive a 2012 PTI scholarship
sponsored by AMSYSCO Inc.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) named Michelle Rosen, a senior ME major
at the Clark School, the Top New Face in the first annual publication of EWeek’s 2012 New
Faces of Engineering College Edition. Rosen was the top student chosen by ASME and is one of
15 students nationwide highlighted by EWeek.
BioE junior Colleen Gulick has been named one of the nation’s Top 10 College Women by Glamour Magazine.
Team Thirsty Turtles won a spot at the National Chem-E-Car Competition. The team includes
ChBE seniors and returning members Kevin Bates, John Weston “Battery Guy” Breda,
Whitney Hollinshead and Leslie Mok; ECE senior and returning member Lucas Hedinger; ChBE juniors
Nick Lepak, Amy Nutis, and Wesley Yan; ChBE sophomore Dao Huang; and ChBE freshmen Trae Vanaskey and Isaac Zaydens. The team is advised by ChBE assistant professor Chunsheng Wang.
ME junior Carlos Casarez won first place for his poster on the feasibility of using elastic springs
and a micro electromechanical systems process on smaller robots at the 2012 Emerging Researchers
National Conference in STEM.
Tshikuna Muanankese (ECE) won the 2011-12 best paper in electrical engineering for “Comparative
Analysis of Different Hybrid Energy Storage systems for Electric Vehicles,” as part of the Sujon Guha
Memorial Award for Academic Excellence and Outstanding Leadership.
ME junior Alex Bansleben has been awarded a prestigious 2012 American Council of Engineering
Companies/Maryland Scholarship.
Two incoming Clark School students, Nadia Abutaleb and Emily Ruppel, have been named Stamps
Banneker/Key Scholars.
Matthew Marcus (AE) was the 2011 recipient of the Shirley C. Sorensen Academic Excellence
Award from the University of Maryland Phi Kappa Phi Foundation.
Clark School MSE senior Eric Epstein has been named an Undergraduate Researcher of the Year
by the Maryland Center for Undergraduate Research for his accomplishments in the field of
lithium-ion battery research.
Matthew Rich (AE) was named a 2012-2013 Philip Merrill Presidential Scholar. Merrill Scholars
and their mentors are honored to highlight academic excellence, teaching, and mentoring.
Rich named his high school calculus teacher and theater director, Thomas Sankey, and AE
visiting assistant professor Mary Bowden as his mentors.
Leah Krombach (AE) was awarded the John Anderson Summer Research Scholarship. The Anderson
Scholarship Competition is held as a means to encourage students in the aerospace related
fields to discuss research, exchange knowledge, and generate interest in the field of aerospace
engineering.
CEE major and Engineers Without Borders volunteer Heungkook “HK” Stephens served as student
speaker at the UMD main commencement ceremony.
ME sophomore Abisola Kusimo won a $1,000 scholarship from UMD’s Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
ChBE senior Whitney Hollinshead, advised by Assistant Professor Ganesh Sriram, is the
recipient of the 2012 Outstanding ASPIRE (A Scholars Program for Industry-Oriented Research in
Engineering) Student Research Award for her work on isotope labeling experiments to determine
the fluxes in metabolic pathways within plant cells.
Kathleen Hendrick, a senior ME major, received the A. James Clark School of Engineering
Dean’s Award.
Nicholas Weadock, a junior materials science and engineering major, received the Dinah Berman
Memorial Award, which recognizes academic excellence combined with leadership or service
to the Clark School.
Andrew Sabelhaus, a senior ME major, received the A. James Clark School of Engineering Leadership
Award.
Erin Hylton, a junior CEE major, received the A. James Clark School of Engineering International
Student Award.
Kristin Kern, a senior ME student, received the Kim A. Borsavage and Pamela J. Stone
Student Award for Outstanding Service.
AE undergraduate students won the first annual Alumni Cup Trophy in a competition, in which
student teams representing each major created Rube Goldberg-inspired devices, incorporating
aspects of their major, that inflated and popped a balloon.
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