5/6/2022 Emily Jankauski
MatSE recognized the outstanding achievements of so many of our alumni, faculty, and undergraduate and graduate students at the department’s Spring 2022 Awards Banquet, held April 21 at the Holiday Inn in Champaign, Ill. Join us in celebrating so many of the MatSE family's achievements.
Written by Emily Jankauski
MatSE isn’t just a tight-knit major, we’re also a family. Together we celebrated the outstanding achievements of so many of our alumni, faculty, and undergraduate and graduate students at the department’s Spring 2022 Awards Banquet, held April 21 at the Holiday Inn in Champaign, Ill.
Recognizing our top-notch crew were MatSE’s Laura Nagel, chief advisor of Undergraduate Studies; Moonsub Shim, director of Graduate Studies and Willett Faculty Scholar; and Nancy Sottos, department head, Swanlund Endowed Chair and Center for Advanced Study Professor.
Let’s join in the celebration and highlight our family of award-winners. Without further ado, let’s roll out the red carpet.
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Alumni Awards
Distinguished Merit Alumni Award: Christopher Schuh
Christopher Schuh is a '97 MatSE bachelor’s recipient. He is now the Danae and Vasilis Salapatas Professor of Metallurgy and MacVicar Fellow at MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering, where he served eight years as the department head.
In 2019, Schuh was inducted as a member of the National Academy of Engineering and as a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He is also the co-founder of Desktop Metal — a 3D printing systems company in Burlington, Mass. — and chief scientist of Xtalic Co. — an advisor in breakthrough materials solutions in Marlborough, Mass.
Schuh’s research explores the processing-structure-property relationships in structural metals, and he is particularly interested in the role of structural disorder and its effect on mechanical properties. He was the 2009 recipient of MatSE’s Young Alumnus Award. In 2015, he returned to the department to give the Howard K. Birnbaum Memorial Lecture.
Loyalty Award: Frank Shi
Frank Shi is a MatSE '96 master’s and '04 doctorate recipient, and he is currently the co-founder and CEO of PhotonIC Technologies — an optoelectronic integrated circuit chips provider in Shanghai, China.
Shi is a devoted alumnus, speaking at college events and to MatSE classes throughout the year.
Young Alumni Award: Ryan Haggerty
Ryan Haggerty, a MatSE 2011 doctorate recipient, has been awarded the Young Alumnus Award for his work as a senior manager at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M.
During the ventilator shortage at the beginning of the pandemic, Haggerty helped the national lab produce 100 ventilators within 30 days. More recently, he has been named the senior manager for the Materials Aging and Reliability Group, where he leads the program responsible for the reliability and safety of the U.S.’ nuclear weapons stockpile.
Student-nominated Awards
Pig Award: Laura Nagel
Ian Flueck and Noah Hanselman, MatSE undergraduates, awarded the student-nominated Pig Award to Nagel for her willingness to go above and beyond for undergraduates in both her advising and oversight of Engineering Open House.
Undergraduate Student Awards
- Alfred W. Allen Award: Ian Flueck, Jessica Lawson, Jordan Meyer and Steve Skala
- Russell Bolton Research Development Award: Noha Azizalrahman, Chloe Kwak
- Dow Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Undergraduate Student Award: Ibukun T Ajifolokun, Noha Azizalrahman
- M. Laird and Charisann Froberg Award: Alison Nunes
- MatSE Alumni Board Award: Ian Flueck
- Sheryl Blair Tipton Award: Grace Levita
Middle row, left, is MatSE junior Ibukun Ajifolokun posing for a photo while displaying her awards. Middle row, middle, are MatSE seniors Grace Levita, left, and Ian Fluek commemorating this special night with a photo. Middle row, right, are MatSE junior Doha Amer, left, and senior Maddie Weller chatting it up after the awards banquet.
Bottom row are some of the award-winners from MatSE's undergraduate student organization Material Advantage. The students couldn't help but grin while posing for a photo following the awards banquet.
Undergraduate Student Scholarships
- A. I. Andrews Scholars: Christian Papachristodoulou and Magilan Sendhil
- Paul A. Beck Scholar: Jeyan Cornelio
- Harry J. Beckemeyer Jr. Memorial Scholar: Maryam Alramadhan
- Clifton G. Bergeron Scholars: Saleem Awan, Robbie Nollett and Joe Tamulaitis
- Louis R. Berner Scholars: Chun-Chia Tsai and Henry Wang
- Gerson B. Bilow Scholars: Daniel Cudzich, Derek De Jong and Nathan Levandovsky
- Bob Bohl Scholars: Cole BenVau, Jiawei Chen, Xianyang Chen, Alice Gao, Kayla Huang, Hannah Liu, Jessica Sun and Anisha Sharma
- Earl J. Eckel Scholars: Zainab Al Hubail, Rachel Branson, Max Cincinnati, Xiangrui Deng, Cesar Gaona, Alexandru Grindeanu, Adem Gundogdu, Aniket Khanna, Jan Lakomy, Ye Lin, Jay Qiao, Kent Suhadi, Mckella Susralski and Sofia Vargas
- MatSE Engineering Visionary Scholars: Mozah Almulhim, Ryan Bushell, Peter Christopherson, Julia Dreher-Threlkeld, Caitlyn Goodwin, Orson Hammond, Cristian Herard, Anthony Hyatt, Akhila Mattapalli, Micah Rubel, Michal Strzebonski and Shivam Tailor
- Arthur L. Friedberg Scholars: Joan Daye, Grant Feldman, Aaron Huang, Amit Niyogi, Suhaas Sura and Jered Zhang
- M. Laird and Charisann Froberg Scholars: Patrick Carmichael and Wei Ong
- Phil Geil Scholar: John Chen
- Henry E. Grein Jr. Scholar: Michael Xu
- Kaiser Aluminum Scholars: Xiyan Chen, Saagar Kolachina, Daniel Matatov, Brisa McGrath, Youfu Qian, Colin Shan and Arvin Sharma
- Doris Maroney Krumwiede Scholars: Meera Karthi and Amanda Mittanck
- Robert E. and Karen Martin Luetje Scholars: Ryan Yao and Boyang Yu
- Kevin Moore Memorial Scholarship: Nathan Anderson
- G. Ronald and Margaret H. Morris Scholar: Andrew Lum
- G. Ronald and Margaret H. Morris Opportunity Scholar: Dawn Lim
- Jim Nelson Scholars: Janak Bachkaniwala, Andrew Chieng, Emir Faisal, Pantao Hu, Jay Jo, Jay Kwon, Aarav Seth, Saisupritha Talasu and Ray Tsai
- Professor Cullen W. Parmelee Scholars: Atharva Atreya, Aakash Gupta, David Hodges, Akshay Subramani, Lucas Zaczek and Boya Zhu
- Professor Cullen W. Parmelee International Scholars: Doha Amer and Katie Roche
- David A. Payne Scholars: Hayden Gantt and Kira Martin
- Frederick A. Petersen Scholar: Kent Wong
- Norman L. Peterson Memorial Scholars: Katrina Arsky, Kenny Lin, Jake Nuttall, Lydia Taylor and Aleah Treiterer
- Larry D. and Carol Rakers Scholars: Ibukun Ajifolokun, Maria Castellanos, Charlotte Holas, Val Cruz Pavon and Jessica Rangel-Galera
- Ian and Victoria Robertson Scholars: Abhi Sharda and Ray Wei
- C. M. Wayman Memorial Scholar: Meghan Oh
- Lucille and Charles Wert Scholars: Josh Leeman, Haoran Liu, Sara Pfeil and Nithiyassri K R T Vivagandan
Graduate Student Awards
- Chakrapani Annual Innovation Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis: Justine Paul
- Conference Presentation (Travel) Award: Sourav Das, Meba Gebre, Saran Pidaparthy, Chang Qian, Nachiket Shah, Zhengzhong Tan, Josh Vita and Cindy Wong
- MatSE Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award: Brian Jing and Abhiroop Mishra
- Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 3M Fellows: Emiliana Cofell and Marilyn Porras-Gomez
- Racheff-Intel Award for Graduate Students: Laura Porath, Arghya Patra, Yang Bo and Quentin Rizzardi
- 3M Graduate Fellowship: Haley Buckner
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Congratulations to the MatSE alumni, faculty, and undergraduate and graduate student award-winners. You are truly inspirational.