Washington State University Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture recognized outstanding students, faculty, and staff at its annual convocation ceremony on April 14. The event was sponsored by the Boeing Company. Honored award winners included:
Outstanding Sophomore:
Razan Osman
Razan Osman is a civil engineering major who is actively involved in several student clubs and organizations, including the American Society of Civil Engineers. After graduating, she plans to use her experiences at WSU to make a positive impact on communities through sustainable efforts.
Outstanding Junior:
Clara Ehinger
A chemical engineering major, Ehinger was recently selected as one of eight students from all WSU campuses to receive an NSF fellowship to do computational research at the University of Linkoping in Sweden. She was also awarded an Erasmus+ scholarship to intern at the University of Lorraine in France this summer. She earned second place in an undergraduate poster competition at the 2022 Annual American Institute for Chemical Engineers Conference. She plans to earn a Ph.D. in electrocatalysis for sustainability.
Outstanding Senior:
Ethan Schaefer
A construction engineering major, Schaefer is the secretary and founding member of WSU Design-Build Institute of America student chapter. This year, he was part of a team that won first place in Design-Build Institute of America Northwest’s Regional Student Competition, and finished 4th in nationals. Following graduation this spring, he will join Bouten Construction Company in Spokane, Washington as a project engineer.
Outstanding Teaching Assistant:
Naseeha Cardwell
A GEM Fellow, Society of Women Engineers -Intel Graduate Diversity Scholar Fellow, and a Renewable Energy Scholarship Foundation Fellow, Cardwell is a teaching assistant in the Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering. Upon graduation, she plans to continue her research on renewable energy within the field of computational catalysis at a national laboratory.
Outstanding Research Assistant:
Taha Belkhouja
Belkhouja, a graduate student in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, is a leader in the study of machine learning for time-series domain. Belkhouja has produced strong research that has been presented at top-tier conferences and published in journals at a level that is remarkable record for a 4th year PhD student. His nominators all agree that he is a unique talent, an outstanding graduate student, and a well-rounded researcher who has a bright future ahead of him.
Dissertation Award:
Aryan Deshwal
Deshwal’s nominators said that he is “one of those rare and extraordinary people who combine technical excellence with strong leadership skills and a delightful and charismatic personality.” Deshwal, in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, is doing novel and high impact artificial intelligence and machine learning research to solve science, engineering, and industrial problems to aid environmental sustainability. “Aryan is destined to be an intellectual leader in AI and ML to solve important real-world problems with high societal impact,” said his nominators.
Reid Miller Excellence in Teaching Award for career-track faculty:
Ben McCamish
McCamish joined the School of Engineering and Computer Science at WSU Vancouver in 2019. As an assistant professor deeply rooted in the WSU community, he not only maintains an excellent teaching record, he also goes the extra mile to help students. For example, he was instrumental in building a virtual community to support student’s tutoring during the COVID pandemic. McCamish regularly teaches CS360 (Systems Programming), which is a challenging course covering critical topics in C programming. Even though many students struggle in this course, they appreciate the rigorous standard being held. One student wrote, “Without Ben’s teaching I definitely wouldn’t have gotten a job after I graduated. My employers especially liked me for my skills in C. Thank you.”
Reid Miller Teaching Excellence Award winner for tenure-track faculty:
John Schneider
Schneider’s nominators agree that he always puts his unique and effective stamp on the delivery of all the courses he has helped design or teach in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science over the past 30 years. When Schneider took over teaching EE 261, which is known as one of the toughest classes at WSU, he immediately made several innovative changes to the course that benefitted students’ performance, reducing the failure rate by 61%. “John is a great teacher, one of the best I’ve had at WSU,” said one of his students. His qualities include devotion, mentorship, and adaptability in the field of teaching, his nominators said. “John is unquestionably a tremendous asset when it comes to the teaching mission of the University,” said another nominator.
Junior Faculty Research Award:
Adam Phillips
Phillips, assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is a highly productive researcher and has developed a broad-based research program in several fields, including in earthquake engineering, nonlinear structural response, sustainable building design, life cycle impact analysis, and engineering education. Since he started at WSU in 2017, he has acquired $3.8 million dollars in competitive research funding either as PI or co-PI.
Anjan Bose Outstanding Researcher Award:
Birgitte Ahring
Ahring, professor in the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering and with the Bioproducts, Sciences and Engineering Laboratory at the WSU Tri-Cities campus, is a prolific researcher and a global leader in biomass conversion research for producing biofuels and high-value bioproducts. With WSU since 2008, she has published more than 500 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Overall, she has been cited 33,702 times in her career and has an h-index of 93. Her research is mission-driven and is focused on solving bottlenecks for bringing new and better technologies for biofuels and bio-products to the market, including pathways to produce sustainable biofuels in the aviation industry from lignin, fungi, and other forms of biomass. She has been recognized around the world for her breakthroughs, including recently being named “Washingtonian of the Day” by Governor Jay Inslee.
Voiland College Safety Award:
Steve Saunders
Saunders, professor in the Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, frequently lends his expertise in training students from other laboratories and performs safety services. He contributes to training materials and other technical assistance with research hazards outside of his laboratory. Saunders advises students on safety and ensures that training, oversight, and skill are applied in the laboratory.
Staff Excellence awards:
Linda Howell and Ian Leibbrandt
Howell is Industry Relations Coordinator for the Energy Systems Innovation Center (ESIC) and Administration and Communications Coordinator for the Advanced Grid Institute (AGI). Her nominators say she is highly dedicated to her job and produces high-quality results. Her experience has been useful in helping find synergy between the two centers that enhance the teaching and research of these power engineering groups.
Leibbrandt is administrative manager for the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. His nominators say he has revamped the culture in the department, and faculty and staff see him as cheerful and extremely helpful.
Employee of the Year:
Lael Gray
Gray, administrative manager for the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, shows great leadership in ensuring support and services to faculty and students, her nominators say. Gray strives to improve herself to provide better services to faculty, students, and staff, and that without her dedicated efforts, the Voiland School would not have had the many successes it has had over the course of the past few years.
