Every semester, undergraduate and graduate students at the Cockrell School of Engineering continue to impress. They lead research activities, student organizations and academic projects. And the 2013 fall semester was no exception.
From leadership awards and paper exhibitions to team competitions and poster contests, our Longhorn engineers earned acknowledgement and honors for their hard work both locally and nationally.
Here’s just a sampling of all the great awards and recognition Cockrell School students received in the fall 2013 semester:
• Biomedical engineering student Alexandra Arambula received the Texas Parents Outstanding Student Award for impressive academic records, selfless service, strong leadership and impeccable character. Read more
• Tim Smith and Urairisa (Birdy) Phathanapirom, two mechanical engineering students in the Nuclear Engineering Program at The University of Texas at Austin have been selected as winners of prestigious nuclear energy funding from the Department of Energy's Nuclear Energy University Programs division. Read more
• Ninety-five percent of Kelley Hutchins' current research is done using computer simulations. This upcoming year, the aerospace engineering Ph.D. student will have the opportunity to see her work incorporated into a flexible wing aircraft program at Edwards Air Force base due to her acceptance into the highly competitive NASA Harriett G. Jenkins Graduate Fellowship Program. Read more
• Biomedical engineering students Stephanie Steichen, Michael Koetting, Ryan Stowers and Hannah Frizzell won awards at the Biomaterials Day poster competition at UT Austin. Read more
• Chemical engineering senior Anny Pan won first place in the Food, Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology division Poster Session at the 2013 AIChE Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Read more
• Aerospace engineering major Bryce Ewalt was selected to receive this semester’s prestigious Outstanding Scholar/Leader Award from the Cockrell School. Read more
• Karun Vijayraghavan, an electrical and computer engineering graduate student in professor Mikhail Belkin’s group, received the outstanding student paper award at the International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves held in Mainz, Germany. Read more
• Suraj Makhija, a biomedical engineering senior, won a First Place Poster Award in the Photoacoustic and Ultrasound Contrast Agents category at the World Molecular Imaging Congress. Read more
• Graduate students Jhih-Rong Gao, Bei Yu, Xiaoqing Xu and their adviser, professor David Z. Pan, in electrical and computer engineering, won the 2nd Place Award at the 2013 International Conference on Computer-Aided Design CAD Contest in Mask Optimization. Read more
• Petroleum and geosystems engineering students scored big at the Society of Petroleum Engineers Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, an international student paper contest and signature PetroBowl event, a competitive academic, single-elimination tournament. UT PGE placed first in the master’s student paper contest and third in the undergraduate paper contest. The PetroBowl team made it to the final round of the competition, taking second place after a strong battle against Colorado School of Mines. Read more
• The American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery recently awarded Tianyi Wang, a research associate in biomedical engineering, with a research grant and a Best Student/Resident Award. Read more
• Electrical and computer engineering student Duehee Lee placed fourth in the IEEE Power and Energy Society Global Energy Forecasting Competition in the Wind Power Forecasting Track. Read more
• Electrical and computer engineering graduate student Chenchen Li won first prize in the 2013 FEKO Student Competition. Li's research was "motivated by significant concerns in the radar community about the rapidly growing number of wind farms." Read more
• Graduate student Nishamathi Kumaraswamy, who works with professors in both biomedical engineering and aerospace engineering, placed third in the poster collegiate contest at the Society of Women Engineers Annual Conference. Read more
• Also at the Society of Women Engineers Annual Conference, UT's Society of Women Engineers won the Silver Award in the Outstanding Collegiate Section.
• Civil engineering freshman Mariana Silva was recognized as the "First Year Student of the Month" by the National Association of College and University Residence Halls, for the month of October.
• Mechanical engineering graduate student Jared Garrison was honored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) national branch with the Old Guard Early Career Award for his outstanding work bridging the gap between college and professional life through both the ASME Central Texas professionals’ chapter and the UT Austin student chapter. He was recognized for his leadership, community outreach and green energy research.
• The UT-American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) student chapter was recognized for its effort to rebuild a retaining wall at Eastwoods Park with the Austin ASCE branch, Bechtel and the Eastwoods Neighborhood Association. Alexis Clark and Krystal Peterson led the student organization efforts to manage the project and were recognized with a plaque at the Austin ASCE November Meeting.
• Ashley Chronister, one of the UT-ASCE outreach chairs, led a team that received an Honorable Mention at CANstruction in November with the team's design for St. Basil's CANthedral.
• David Vargas, secretary of UT-ASCE, won the 2013 Cockrell School T-Shirt Contest Award for the Class of 2018 orientation T-shirt.
