Graduate School Newsblog

Tag: Awards

Spring 2009 BRC Travel Grants Announced

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Tech Today

The Biotechnology Research Center has announced the recipients of its 2009 Spring Travel Grants:

* Postdoctoral Scientist Yordan Yordanov (SFRES) will receive $500 toward his podium presentation at the 4th International Symposium on Plant Dormancy, to be held in Fargo, N.D., in June.

* Graduate student Sarah Kiemle (Biological Sciences) will receive $500 toward her podium presentation at the 2009 Phycological Society of America Annual Meeting, to be held in Honolulu in July.

* Graduate student Johnathan E. Lawrence (Biological Sciences) will receive $500 toward his poster presentation at the Experimental Biology 2009 Conference, held in New Orleans in April.

* Graduate student Angela Lucas (Biological Sciences) will receive $250 toward her poster presentation at the Experimental Biology 2009 Conference.

* Graduate student Anahita Pakzad (ME-EM) will receive $500 toward her podium presentation at the TMS 2009 Annual Meeting, held in San Francisco in February.

* Graduate student Ratul Saha (Biological Sciences) will receive $500 toward his poster presentation at the American Society for Microbiology 109th Meeting, held in Philadelphia this month.

* Graduate student Zijun Xu (Biological Sciences) will receive $290 toward his poster presentation at the 51st Annual Maize Genetics Conference, held in St. Charles, Ill., in March.

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Graduate Students Earn Honors

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Published in Tech Today.

CEE Professors, Graduate Student Win Rudolph Hering Medal
Alex Mayer and David Hand, both professors of civil and environmental engineering, and Karen Endres, a former PhD student, have been named winners of the 2009 Rudolph Hering Medal from the American Society of Civil Engineers. The award is given annually for the best paper on environmental engineering or water resources published in an ASCE journal during the previous year.

Their award-winning paper is titled “Equilibrium versus Nonequilibrium Treatment Modeling in the Optimal Design of Pump-and-Treat Groundwater Remediation Systems.”

The prize is a prestigious one among environmental engineers. The medal will be presented at the Environmental and Water Resources Institute Annual Congress May 17 in Kansas City.

Graduate Student Awarded Travel Assistance to Railway Conference
Graduate student Shane Ferrell, a member of the Rail Transportation Program, was awarded $1,800 in travel assistance from the International Heavy Haul Association to attend its June 2009 conference in Shanghai, China.

The Rail Transportation Program at Michigan Tech was established by the Michigan Tech Transportation Institute in 2007. The program provides rail-related education and research activities, engaging students and faculty with industry partners.

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MBA Student Chad Daavettila Honored

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Tech Today

MBA student Chad Daavetilla was inducted into the Michigan Tech chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma business honor society.  Students ranking in the top 20 percent of master’s degree programs at schools accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International are eligible for membership.

While almost 300,000 students receive bachelor’s or master’s degrees in business each year, only about 20,000 are inducted into lifetime membership in Beta Gamma Sigma. BGS membership provides many benefits, including career development advice, leadership conferences, networking with successful business people and scholarships.

The co-advisors for the Michigan Tech chapter of BGS are Associate Professor Chelley Vician and Assistant Professor Mari Buche (SBE). For more information about BGS, visit http://betagammasigma.org/index.htm .

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Computer Science Faculty Member, Doctoral Candidate Receive Best Paper Award

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Published in Tech Today

Doctoral candidate Alicia Thorsen and Assistant Professor Philip Merkey (Computer Science), along with Professor Fredrik Manne of the University of Bergen in Norway, received the Best Paper Award at the High Performance Computing and Simulation Symposium held in late March in San Diego.

Thorsen presented the paper, “Maximum Weighted Matching Using the
Partitioned Global Address Space Model.”

This paper described the design and implementation of an algorithm, expressed in a new programming language, UPC, which is designed to program the coming generation of petascale supercomputers.

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Geology Grad Student Wins National Recognition

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Tech Today

by Tom Schneider, student writer

For Alex Guth, being a graduate student is hardly a passive ordeal.

Recently, the Association for Women Geoscientists awarded the Brunton Award to Guth. This award, named for a top manufacturer of high-end compasses, is a prestigious commendation for work in field mapping and data acquisition. The award will include a personally engraved compass from Brunton.

“We are very proud of Alex’s work and are glad to see it recognized by a well respected organization like the Association for Women Geoscientists,” said Professor Wayne Pennington, chair of the geological and mining engineering and sciences department. Guth is pursuing a PhD in Geology.

Guth uses satellite imaging to create innovative geological maps of remote, inaccessible terrain. She has conducted fieldwork in Kenya, studying rifts in the earth. She also teaches an online distance learning course in earth science for teachers (K-12), as well as the lecture section of Structural Geology and a course on mapping of remote terrain.

“Alex is not just another student, she is a critical member of our department,” said Pennington.

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Fulbright Scholar Dream Come True

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Printed in the Daily Mining Gazette

By Michael Babcok, DMG Writer

For Michigan Technological University graduate student, Richard Basary, coming to America was a dream and a goal.  The University’s reputation in Materials Science and Engineering attracted the Fulbright Scholar from Indonesia.  “Indonesia needs people who know about technology,” Basary says, “but with a servant heart.” After graduation, he plans to return to his home in Papua and make a sustainable difference in how people take advantage of renewable sources.

Read full story online.

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ESC/BRC Research Forum Awards Announced

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Published in Tech Today

The Ecosystem Science Center and the Biotechnology Research Center have announced award recipients of the Fifth Annual ESC/BRC Graduate Research Forum, held on Feb. 27.

Two Grand Awards, six Merit Awards and three Honorable Mention Awards were presented.

$500 Grand Prizes

Ecosystem Science Center

Elizabeth Boisvert (SFRES) for “Initiation and Development of Three Lake Superior Coastal Peatlands”; advisor: Assistant Professor Tom Pypker

Biotechnology Research Center

Eric Minner (Biomedical Engineering) for “Hydrogel System Delivers Glutathione and Interleukin-10 to Mitigate Secondary Injury following Spinal Cord Damage”; advisor: Assistant Professor Ryan Gilbert

$100 Merit Prizes

Ecosystem Science Center

Lucas Spaete (SFRES) for “Aspen Biomass Assessment for MI, WI and MN: A GIS and Regression Approach for Quantifying Biomass”; advisor: Associate Professor Ann Maclean

Sarah Stehn (SFRES) for “Altitudinal Gradients of Bryophyte Diversity and Community Assemblage in Southern Appalachian Spruce-Fir Forests”; advisor: Associate Professor Christopher Webster

Biotechnology Research Center

Jared Cregg (Biomedical Engineering) for “The Role of Aligned Fiber Density in Axon Motility”; advisor: Assistant Professor Ryan Gilbert

Jill Jensen (Chemical Engineering) for “Selection for Improved Hybrid Poplar Via Dilute Acid and Enzymatic Hydrolysis Using Mini-Reactors”; advisor: Professor David Shonnard

Dalila Trupiano (SFRES) for “Activation Tagging of A Poplar AP2/ERF Transcription Factor Involved in Lateral Root Formation”; advisor: Associate Professor Victor Busov

Han Bing Wang (Biomedical/Chemical Engineering) for “Axonal Guidance Conduits Containing Aligned, Electrospun Poly-L-Lactic Acid Fibers Direct In Vitro Neurite Outgrowth”; advisors: Assistant Professor Ryan Gilbert (Biomedical Engineering) and Professor Michael Mullins (Chemical Engineering)

Honorable Mentions, Ecosystem Science Center

Chris Miller (SFRES) for “The Economic Feasibility of Aspen as a Coal Co-Firing Component”; advisor: Assistant Professor Robert Froese

Matthew Metz (SFRES) for “Summer Predation Patterns of Yellowstone Gray Wolves”; advisor: Assistant Professor John Vucetich

Max Henschell (SFRES) for “Do the Birds Care? Avian Community Response to Floristic Quality”; advisor: Associate Professor David Flaspohler

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