Graduate Student R&D Showcase Was a Success

Front row (left to right): Prof. Rumana Riffat accepting the first-place award on behalf of her graduate students Marija Peric and Dilli Neupane; Ashish Bhargava, the second-place winner; and Anis Norden, the third-place winner. Back row (left to right): Mr. Patrick Garner of the ECE Department; Dr. Randy Graves; and Dr. Pat Phelan of NSF.

On Wednesday April 25th, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) held its first annual Graduate Student R&D Showcase in the Marvin Center’s Continental Ballroom. This first annual event provided highlights into the research activities at SEAS while fostering interaction among local and regional industry, governmental organizations, potential GW students, alumni, and SEAS faculty and graduate students. It was organized under the auspices of the SEAS Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer and Commercialization (CET2C) with planning and organizational support from Randy Graves, Henry Sienkiewicz, and Tony Stanco of CET2C; Marilyn Shazier of Dean Timothy Tong’s office; and Ali Legnos, Evan Faber, and Matt Honan, the SEAS student interns. There were 47 research projects represented by their graduate student principal investigators at the R&D poster session.

The keynote speaker was Dr. Adnan Akay, Division Director of Civil, Mechanical, & Manufacturing Innovation at the National Science Foundation. The posters were judged on the basis of presentation and content, and Dean Tong awarded the top three projects with cash awards. The $500 first-place award went to Marija Peric and Dilli Neupane for “Full-Scale Primary Clarifier Performance for Phorphorus Removal;” the $300 second-place award went to Anis Norden for “Surface Acoustic Wave Resonators in CMOS Technology for RF Oscillators;” and the $200 third-place award went to Ashish Bhargava for “Finite-Element Analysis of Fatigue Prone Details of the Tuttle Creek Bridge.” The event was well attended and will be repeated again next year.