Grad Students Bring in Bumper Crop of Honors
Graduate students in the UA department of aerospace and mechanical engineering have a long history of strong scholastic performance, but this year they have brought in a bumper crop of honors and awards.
University Awards
Two fall 2016 additions to AME doctoral programs – Arth Pande in aerospace engineering and Sahand Sabet in mechanical engineering – were selected for 2016-2017 College of Engineering Graduate College Fellowships, which provide $30,000 and a full tuition scholarship.
They follow in the footsteps of 2015-2016 GCF recipients Mark Agate (aerospace engineering, advised by Jesse Little) and Ethan Boroson (mechanical engineering, advised by Samy Missoum).
Three PhD students received 2016-2017 Theodor Troller Memorial Scholarships: Ying Fang (aerospace engineering, advised by Edward Kerschen), Samaneh Fooladi (mechanical engineering, advised by Tribikram Kundu) and Scott Harrison (mechanical engineering, advised by Jonathan Vande Geest).
The Troller Scholarship, a merit-based award specifically designated for AME graduate students, was named after aerospace engineer Theodore Troller, who was instrumental in developing the model block construction one-piece vaneaxial fan used in most commercial and military aircraft from 1946 to 1960.
National Awards
Mark Agate was selected for a highly-competitive National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship.
Mechanical engineering MS student Luis Ballesteros received an NSF Bridge to the Doctorate fellowship, which supports students from underrepresented minorities in pursuing master's degrees in STEM fields.
Mechanical engineering doctoral student Christian Davila-Peralta (advised by J. Roger P. Angel) was awarded a four-year scholarship from the Energy Sustainability Fund of the Secretariat of Energy of Mexico, which is managed by the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico, or CONACyT.
Victor Hung Nguyen, a mechanical engineering PhD student advised by Olesya Zhupanska, received a prestigious NASA Education Aeronautics Scholarship and Advanced STEM Training and Research Fellowship. The fellowship, part of NASA’s initiative to strengthen their involvement with higher education, provides a stipend, tuition waiver and health insurance allowances.
Mechanical engineering PhD student Arman Dabiri (advised by Eric Butcher) has several reasons to celebrate: His article “Modelling One-Dimensional Fractional Impact Using Basic Fractional Viscoelastic Models," co-authored with Butcher and Morad Nazari, received the Best Paper Award by the 12th International Conference on Multibody Systems, Nonlinear Dynamics, and Control committee in the 2016 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conference. In addition, two of his papers were nominated for the MSNDC committee's 2016 Best Student Paper Award. Arman also won a UA Graduate and Professional Student Council travel grant to attend the 2016 American Control Conference.
Pictured, left to right: Scott Harrison, Christian Davila-Peralta, Sahand Sabet, Mark Agate, Ying Fang, Ethan Boroson, Arth Pande and Arman Dabiri.