GRADUATE STUDENT AWARDS
2007 - Kathryn van Werkhoven, a doctoral degree candidate in civil engineering working with Dr. Thorsten Wagener, received an outstanding student paper award from the American Geophysical Union (AGU) for a poster presented at the 2006 Fall AGU Meeting in San Francisco. The poster was entitled “A sensitivity-guided strategy for distributed watershed model calibration” with co-authors Thorsten Wagener, Yong Tang and Patrick Reed. This award is typically given to less than 5 percent of student papers presented at a National AGU meeting. 2007 - Douglas Call, doctoral degree candidate in environmental engineering, was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) and a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG). 2007 - Rachel Wagner, a doctoral degree candidate in environmental engineering, was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF). The GRF provides three years of support for those pursuing research-based master's or doctoral degrees, and is intended for students who are at the early stages of their graduate study. The awards are given to candidates who demonstrate their potential to successfully complete graduate degree programs in disciplines relevant to the mission of the NSF. 2006 - Brian Swartz, BSCE Penn State 2006 and currently an MS student in the structures area, received the ACI (American Concrete Institute) Fellowship for the 06-07 academic year. As the winner, he receives $10,000, travel to three ACI Conventions, and a paid internship in the Concrete area. Brian also received the Wire Reinforcement Institute Scholarship of $5000 for the 06-07 academic year. He was chosen from over 280 applicants. 2006 - Three graduate students from Penn State are among 13 chosen as fellows for the International Road Federation's Executive Leadership Program. The students, all from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, are Shivprakash Iyer, Tanmay Kumar and Dongmin Lee. The Executive Leadership Program is designed to teach leadership skills in an intensive format. Students are nominated by their academic departments and must be in their final year of study before returning to their home country. The weeklong program takes place in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board. 2006 - Carlos Coronado, a doctoral candidate in civil engineering of Dr. Maria del Mar Lopez de Murphy, received a third-place honor at the 2006 Graduate Exhibition. Coronado was recognized for his project, "Characterization and Modeling of the Interface Between Concrete and Repair Materials." Projects are judged by faculty, alumni, and students. Established by The Graduate School, the annual Graduate Exhibition offers graduate students the opportunity to present their work to the general public. 2006 - Chaitali R. Mehta, a Masters degree student in civil engineering of Dr. Sunil Sinha, was awarded “Rain for Rent” NASTT Student Chapter Scholarship at the 2006 No-Dig Conference held on March 26-30, Nashville, TN. 2006 - Carol Tan, a former graduate student in civil engineering, has received the Pikarsky Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation in Science and Technology from the Council of University Transportation Centers. Tan's dissertation was titled "An Investigation of Comfortable Lateral Acceleration of Horizontal Curves." The study examined both passenger comfort and the safety margin against skidding on horizontal curves. Before 2004, design values were based on studies conducted in the 1930s and 1940s. Tan received her doctorate in civil engineering in 2005.
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2006 - Jeff Volz was awarded the Graduate Assistant Outstanding Teaching Award. This is a university-wide award sponsored by the Graduate School and the Office of the Vice President and Dean for Undergraduate Education. |
2006 - Shivprakash Iyer, a graduate student of Dr. Sunil Sinha, is a recipient of the Alumni Association Dissertation Award in the Engineering category for Spring 2006. |
2005 - Richard J. Porter, a doctoral candidate in civil engineering, has been selected to receive the Mid-Atlantic Universities Transportation Center (MAUTC) Student of the Year Award. Porter was chosen for his professional, academic and personal achievements. He will receive a certificate and $1,000 at the Transportation Research Board's (TRB) annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
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| 2005 - Shivprakash Iyer , a graduate student of Dr. Sunil Sinha, and Tanmay Kumar, a graduate student of Dr. Ghassan Chehab, have both received an International Road Federation (IRF) Executive Leadership Fellow Grant for 2006. |
| 2005 - Jeff Volz was chosen for an ACI (American Concrete Institute) Fellowship. He receives a $10,000 stipend plus all expense paid trips to three ACI National Conventions as part of this award. Eric Musselman was also chosen as a finalist for this award. Jeff and Eric are PhD candidates in CEE working in the concrete structures area with Dr. Andrea Schokker. Both students traveled to the ACI convention in New York City in April 2005 as finalists chosen from a large number of top applicants to interview for this prestigious fellowship. Details are at: http://www.concrete.org/STUDENTS/stu_scholar_2005Awardees.htm |