STUDENT NEWS
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The recpients of the 2008 Grainger Power Engineering Awards (with Dean Paul Peercy and members of the Grainger Foundation)
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The 2008 Grainger POWER ENGINEERING awards
In April, the College of Engineering awarded 10 undergraduate students Grainger Power Engineering Awards. The students’ interests range from power generation, conversion, transmission and control to issues related to alternative energy and sensing technologies, among others. Sponsored by The Grainger Foundation, the awards honor students for their academic success in the field of power engineering.
Pictured (from left) are: Gloria Sinclair (The Grainger Foundation), Dean Paul Peercy and student recipients Beau Brossman, David Nosbusch, Jonah Paul, Jon Hart, Matt Burton, Matt Endres, Mike Schlindwein, Billy Young, Eric VanderZanden and Dan Molzahn, and David Kendall (The Grainger Foundation).
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Undergraduate Tyrus S. Cartwright is among four University of Wisconsin System students to receive 2008 Alliant Energy/Erroll B. Davis Jr. Achievement Awards, which recognize outstanding scholarship and community service.
Cartwright is a first-generation college student who is expected to graduate with a bachelor of science degree in December 2008. His community service includes membership in the National Society of Black Engineers and the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. Made possible by the Alliant Energy Foundation, which established a $400,000 endowment fund in 2007, the awards honor former Alliant Energy CEO Erroll B. Davis (now chancellor for the University of Georgia System), who holds degrees in engineering and business.
During spring semester 2007, freshmen in Professor Giri Venkataramanan’s introductory engineering class were challenged to build a functioning wind turbine from scratch. The stated goal was to generate power, but by the course’s end, the students had also gained critical hands-on skills, team experience—and a powerful understanding of what it means to be an engineer. “I wanted them to generate electricity,” says Venkataramanan. “I wanted them to appreciate how much really needs to go on to make that happen.” Please go to www.news.wisc.edu/13833 to see a short video about the course.
Siqi Luo, a graduate student in electrical and computer engineering, won the 2007 IEEE PPPS best paper award and $500 prize for the paper “Atmospheric pressure laser initiated and radio frequency sustained plasmas.” IEEE chose the paper from about 75 student-authored publications. Luo received the honor at the Albuquerque International Pulsed Power & Plasma Sciences conference in June. (Luo is an advisee of Professor John Scharer.)
In September, graduate student Xujiao (Suzey) Gao received the Best Student Paper Award from the Numerical Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices (NUSOD) Institute for her paper, “Design and optimization of a GaAs-based sub-7-micron quantum cascade laser based on multivalley Monte Carlo simulation.” Gao presented the paper and received the award, the first of its kind from the organization at the NUSOD International Conference at the University of Delaware. (Gao is an advisee of Assistant Professor Irena Knezevic.)
The American Association of University Women (AAUW) awarded its Engineering Dissertation Fellowship to Mariya Lazebnik, a graduate student, and named her a Selected Professionals Fellow for 2007-2008. The AAUW provides fellowships to women in full-time academic programs where women’s participation traditionally has been low. (Lazebnik is an advisee of Professor Susan Hagness.)
