May 2, 2024
By Ashley Ritchie

The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering has honored 18 students with different graduate student awards. This year, the prestigious awards are accompanied by fellowships, recognizing each student’s exceptional research contributions throughout the 2023-2024 academic year.

"I want to thank the Graduate Student Development Committee for spearheading this initiative in support of the strategic plan and helping select these awardees. I am also grateful to our donors for their generous support which will allow our graduate students to advance research, teaching, and innovation in the field of mechanical engineering," said Devesh Ranjan, Eugene C. Gwaltney, Jr. School Chair.

Award winners include:

Best Graduate Instructor Award

• Derek Nichols, Flowers Fellowship
• Jacob Tjards, Flowers Fellowship

Best Graduate Teaching Assistant Award

• Henry Lee, Flowers Fellowship
• Niam Morar, Flowers Fellowship
• Young Jae Ryu, Flowers Fellowship
• Luke Wells, Flowers Fellowship

Excellence in Service and Leadership Award

• Bettina Arkhurst, Flowers Fellowship
• Talia Thomas, Flowers Fellowship

Ph.D. Research Excellence Award

• Omar Allam, Flowers Fellowship
• Seunghyeb Ban, Maddox Fellowship
• Timothy Brumfiel, Pruitt Fellowship
• Jungho Choi, Pruitt Fellowship
• Nancy Deaton, Wepfer Fellowship
• Kyungbin Lee, Zalesky Fellowship
• Jennifer Leestma, Maddox Fellowship
• Wenjing Li, Flowers Fellowship
• Anastasia Schauer, Flowers Fellowship
• Chiyu Yang, Flowers Fellowship