May 21, 2018

Dear members of the Hajim School community,

Thanks to all of you who participated in our commencement activities Saturday and Sunday. Despite some rain and clouds, it was a joyous weekend. Congratulations again to all our graduating students.

Our diploma ceremony was also an opportunity to recognize Laurel Carney, the Marylou Ingram Professor of Biomedical Engineering, with this year’s Edmund A. Hajim Outstanding Faculty Award, and Gina Kern, the administrative assistant to the director of The Institute of Optics, with the Hajim Outstanding Staff Award.

Laurel’s award-winning research combines neurophysiological, behavioral, and computational modeling techniques to understand the complex network of auditory nerve fibers that transmit the inner ear’s electrical signals to the brain. She has also excelled as a teacher, winning an outstanding professor of the year award from the Student Association, and as a mentor to junior faculty members in the department, hosting regular sessions to help them write and submit grant proposals.

Gina has demonstrated extraordinary dedication to the students, staff, and faculty of The Institute of Optics while serving under four directors; she has truly been “the face of the institute, the heart of the staff, and the keeper of institutional memory.” She will be sorely missed when she retires later this year.

Commencement is also an opportunity to recognize several outstanding students who are recipients of Hajim School awards:

Jacques Kouevi received the G. Harold Hook Prize for demonstrating outstanding interest in engineering.

Harrah Newman and Jinge Wang received the Charles L. Newton Prize for showing special proficiency in an engineering subject and conducting research, giving a presentation, or publishing a paper.

Dyreek Brathwaite, Shuang Chang, Luke Dengler, Nora Lane, Oluwasegunfunmi Oluyinka, Jordan Rabinowitz, Mihiraan Singh, and Xuan Sun received the Donald M. Barnard Prize, awarded to junior or senior engineering students on the basis of personal qualification and achievement.

Meghan Patrick received the Richard Eisenberg Engineering Award, which recognizes hard-working undergraduates who have an interest in metallurgy.

Ivan Suminski and Ruoxue (Astra) Zhang received the Robert L. Wells Prize for demonstrating competence in both engineering and the humanities.

Rebecca Walton received the Tau Beta Pi Award, which is given to Tau Beta Pi seniors who, through academic achievement, proven leadership, and sterling character, have excelled and inspired fellow students.

Raymond Chin, Luke Dengler, Mollie Eva Hansen, and Fernando Suarez are our inaugural NAE Grand Challenges Scholars, for combining research, community engaged learning, interdisciplinary experiences, entrepreneurship, and global experiences to address one of 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century, as identified by the National Academy of Engineering.

(Click here for a list that also includes students receiving department awards).

Teams with Hajim School students took the top three prizes at last week’s Mark Ain Business Model Competition, with an especially strong showing for BME’s Center for Medical Technology and Innovation (CMTI) masters program, which trains students for the medical device industry.

CompreSure Medical – Alyssa Lopez, Gregory Dadourian, and Meghann Meyer of CMTI, and Rachel Zimmer, a masters student in business administration, took first place and $10,000 for a novel implant allowing for minimally invasive bone reduction of fractures.

ADASI – Rebecca Amorese, Amanda Smith, and Evan Sosnow of CMTI took second place and $2,500 for a disposable suction tip attachment accessory designed to reduce water and increase efficiency during spinal surgery.

Prosthesis for a New Syria – Ibrahim Mohammad and Omar Soufan, both graduate students in mechanical engineering, took third place and $1,000 for providing amputees in regions with low healthcare resources with low-cost, customizable 3D prostheses. Ibrahim and Omar were members of a team that tied for first place last year.

Congratulations as well to Rasoul Shafipour, a PhD student in the lab of Gonzalo Mateos, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. Rasoul has received a Donald M. and Janet C. Barnard Fellowship for the 2018-2019 academic year.

Be sure to take a look at the University Communications “Making their Mark” series about Class of ’18 members who made the most of their experiences here. It includes these Hajim School students:

Josh Pachter, a computer science major and philosophy minor, whose Senior Scholars Research Program project — involving self-driving cars —addressed such questions as: Can we train machines to act ethically?
Anya Khalid, who came to the University without having ever coded in her life, has now graduated with degrees in data science and economics, and is headed to a job as a data analytics consultant for Ernst and Young in Seattle.
Juan Estrella, a classical guitarist who wanted to create an electronic musical interface that would free musicians from the constraints of traditional instruments, and found the opportunity to do so in the audio and music engineering program.
Ivan Suminksi, who has completed a demanding dual major in mechanical engineering and violin performance through the Dual Degree with Eastman Program.
Two BME senior design teams, one of which created a portable device to screen for diabetes in Micronesia and another that designed a hybrid walker to help children with disabilities learn to walk and also keep up with their peers.

Special thanks to:

Edmund Hajim ’58, former chairman of the Board of Trustees and Hajim School benefactor, for his congratulatory remarks at our diploma ceremony.
Lisa Norwood, for once again doing a superb job of organizing all of our commencement activities.
Several of our staff members who were on hand to help ensure everything went smoothly.
The faculty members who joined us on the stage at Kodak Hall.

A reminder to our junior faculty members: Be sure to sign up for the five weekly sessions of this summer’s CAREER Bootcamp, starting May 31, to learn all the ins and outs of successfully applying for the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious award for early career faculty members. Past sessions have already helped several of our faculty secure CAREER awards. Contact Cindy Gary for more information.

Best wishes to all our graduates as they embark on the next stages of their journeys. And I wish all of you a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend. Hajim Highlights will return next Tuesday.

Your dean,
Wendi Heinzelman