Senior biomedical engineering student Erica Bozeman won the first place research award for her poster presented at the Tennessee Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Undergraduate Research Conference held Nov. 16 in Murfreesboro, Tenn. Her first-place poster was entitled "Development of an Adherence Diagnostic Assay for the In-Vitro Analysis of Streptococcus Pneumoniae Surface Adhesin A (PsaA) Protein and the Human Cell Receptor E-cadherin."

Vanderbilt engineering graduate students were awarded first and second place in the 2006 Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Forum Poster Competition for their presentations Wednesday, Nov. 8. Chemical engineering student Christina Payne won first place for "Molecular Dynamics Simulation of a Nanoscale Device for Fast Sequencing of DNA," and materials science student Anuradha Bulusu obtained second place for "Modeling of Thermoelectric Properties of Nanofilms and Nanowires."

A team of Vanderbilt computer science undergraduates took first place in one of the ten sites of the annual Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest, Mid-Central Region.  Juniors Evan Makowski and Dan Smith, and sophomore Roger Wu defeated 16 other area collegiate teams on site at the five-hour event, held Nov. 5 at Tennessee Technological University, correctly solving six of the seven problems in the smallest amount of time. The team also finished second in the region, defeating 122 teams, behind Northwestern University. The ACM Mid-Central Region includes colleges located in Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee. By finishing second, the Vanderbilt team will be eligible to compete in the International World Finals to be held in Japan in the spring. Senior Matthew DeVries was responsible for team practices and team training and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Lecturer Julie Johnson acted as the faculty team coach. Another Vanderbilt team, consisting of DeVries, freshman Andrew Jallouk, and senior Ari Wilson, finished fourth at the Tennessee Tech Site and 21st in the Region.

Electrical Engineering doctoral candidate Megan Casey won the Best Student Paper Award for the 2006 Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference, held July 17 - 21 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. Her paper, "Single-Event Tolerant Latch Using Cascode-Voltage Switch Logic Gates," was co-authored by Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering Bharat L. Bhuva, doctoral candidate Jeff D. Black, Professor of Electrical Engineering Lloyd W. Massengill, doctoral candidate Oluwole A. Amusan, and Research Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering Arthur F. Witulski.

Jacob J. Hughey, engineering senior with a double major in biomedical engineering and mathematics, has won a prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship. He was selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,081 mathematics, science and engineering students nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide. The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program, established by the U.S. Congress in 1986, covers the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to a maximum of 7,500 per year.

Engineering senior Talbot Hansum received the Federal Executive Association’s “Team Volunteer Service Award” for 2006 from Carol Warner, president of the Middle Tennessee Federal Executive Association, at a luncheon honoring Vanderbilt Naval ROTC’s community service efforts during the 2005-06 academic year. This marks the second consecutive year Vanderbilt’s NROTC program has been recognized with the award, and the first time that has happened in the award's history.

Engineering graduate student Xing Zhou has won an IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society 2006 Paul Phelps Continuing Education Grant. Zhou received the award in recognition for her research and contributions to understanding the effects of temperature stress and ionizing radiation exposure on metal-oxide semiconductor devices incorporating alternative dielectrics to silicon dioxide. She was nominated for the award by her thesis adviser, Dan Fleetwood, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

*Tau Beta Pi inductees, 2007*

Aashish Bapat
Doug BeCraft
Chris Bellande
John Bellows
Tom Billings
Ryan Bowers
Joseph Cacioppo
Shannon Capps
Matt Casavant
Jacob Connelly
Skyler Ashton Dalley
Jason Deaner
Steven Elliott
Ungku Afig Ungku Farid
Andrew Graf
Talbot Hansum
David Harju
Blake Hooper
David Hughart
Jenna James
Ash Jayogopal
Tengku Yasmine Kamaruddin
Shane Magee
Steven Manuel
Brian Marsh
Dan Maxwell
Nor Izzati Nordin
Anas Othman
Lauren Plettner
Nabilah Fatin Abdul Rahim
Nik Mohd Daniel Abdul Rahman
Trey Reece
Claire Ann Rubin
Katherine Scott
Syahrul Aiman Shaharuddin
Rachel Helen Shively
Azreena Ahmad Shukri
Nicholas Snyder
Elise Springer
Roy Stone
Prabal Sharma Tiwaree
Virginia Westervelt
Ari Wilson

 

The National Science Foundation winners of the prestigious graduate research fellowships include eight from the Vanderbilt School of Engineering:

Miles Barr
Kelsey Bitting
Heather Brant
Veda Laohom
Christina Peabody
Lauren Shepherd
JoAnna Todd
Daniel Walker

Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Forum Poster Competition Winners

1st Place
Aren Gerdon
"QCM Detection of Glutathione-Protected Nanoclusters Using Antibody Recognition"

2nd Place
Yang Fu
"EFTEM Study of Grain Separation in FePt/MgO Multilayers"

3rd Place
John Rozen
"Current Percolation in Nanocrystalline Vanadium Dioxide Thin Films"