May 7, 2018
Dear members of the Hajim School community,
Lots of congratulations are in order as we near the end of another academic year.
Twenty-seven Hajim School seniors and juniors were inducted Saturday as new members of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academic honor society. They are:
- Biomedical Engineering: Amanda Hornick ’17, Seung Hyun Kim ’17, Tianyu Wu, and Hetince Zhao.
- Chemical Engineering: Nikolas Angyal ’17, Luke Dengler, Rui Gao, Janson Ho, Haberly Kahn, Unni Kurumbail, and Mark Sweeney.
- Computer Science: Gayeon Lee and Shir Maimon,
- Data Science: Fuya Xu.
- Electrical and Computer Engineering: Yukun Chen, Arlen Fan, Meixiao Han, Mihiraan Singh, and Ruoxue Zhang.
- Mechanical Engineering: Sean Boylan, Jacob Erichson, Meghan Patrick, Eric Pinsker-Smith, Rebecca Walton, and Jinge Wang.
- The Institute of Optics: David Lippman and Jordan Rabinowitz.
Taimi Marple, the undergraduate program coordinator in biomedical engineering, was announced as our Dottie Welch Student Enrichment Award Winner at Friday’s Design Day. This award recognizes a Hajim School faculty or staff member “whose performance and dedication enriches the student experience in the tradition exemplified by Dottie Welch.” Well done, Taimi!
Our Art of Science competition this year was memorable not only for the record number of entries, but the creativity and thoughtfulness demonstrated by all who entered. Our winners are:
- 1st place: Jeremy Hassett, optics graduate student, and Ayumi Yuasa ‘18 of audio and music engineering, for “Glass Yellowjacket.”
- 2nd place: Caleb Whittier ’18 of chemistry for “Rosalia.”
- 3rd place: Carlos Stroud, professor of optics, for “Frosty Windowpane.”
- Best Video: Jeff Tithof, a postdoctoral associate in mechanical engineering, for “Rocky Turbulence.”
In addition, Sabin Kim ’20 of chemical engineering; Yineng Zhao, a graduate student in materials science; Haley Cohen ’21 of microbiology; and Isabelle Hoffman ’20 of mechanical engineering received certificates for submissions on the theme of sustainability. Please click here to see their submissions.
Putting on a competition like this is a huge undertaking. Special thanks to Sandra Turner, my special assistant, for another great job of organizing this, and to all who helped her, including Sabastian Abelezele, Marcos dos Santos, Frederico Hama, Jesca Chengula, Mary Lou Biedenbach, Brian McIntrye, and Rob Clark, and to the University Libraries, the Rochester Museum and Science Center, and the Memorial Art Gallery for partnering with us.
These Hajim students were recognized at the University’s annual Undergraduate Research Exposition. Harrah Newman ’18 of biomedical engineering received a President’s Award for “Viscoelastic Heating of Bovine Intervertebral Disc.” Deans’ Awards went to Ellison Etnier ’18 of chemical engineering for “Development of Thin-Film Polymer Electrolytes for Safe Lithium Ion Batteries” and to Sue Zhang ’18 of biomedical engineering for “Optimization and Characterization of 3D Human Prepubertal Testis Organoid System.” And Gregory Shephard ’18 of chemical engineering received a Professors’ Choice Award for “Computational Fluid Dynamics in Liquid Metal Batteries.”
Hetince Zhao ’18 of biomedical engineering and the other members of the UR Connected team took first place and $5,000 in the Charles and Janet Forbes Entrepreneurial Competition. The team plans to address loneliness and isolation in senior populations by aggregating community involvement resources onto a single platform, offering a web portal for service providers, along with an easy to navigate user interface that older adults can access as both a website and a mobile application.
Three other teams finished in a tie for second:
- UpTick: Sidhant Ahluwalia ’18 of computer science and Obed Badillo Moreno ’19 of mechanical engineering.
- HORN Empowers: including Aime Laurent Twizerimana ’20 of chemical engineering.
- BarterOut: including Luis Nova ’18, Zixu Chen ’20, and Duncan Grubbs ’21 of computer science and Annmarie Hamburgen ’19 business and computer science.
Congratulations to all of our seniors and CMTI master’s students whose hard work was evident Friday in the more than 90 projects that were showcased during Design Day at the Goergen Athletic Center. Click here for thumbnails of the projects.
Our Visiting Committee, which met Friday on campus, was able to view the projects and talk with students. I am grateful, as always, for the opportunity to meet with the committee and receive its input.
Have a great week!
Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman
