ASME Honors and Awards: Amplifying the Prestige and Status of Mechanical Engineering

Complete with award recipients in black-tie attire, multimedia presentations, acceptance speeches and hearty applause, the ASME Honors Assembly promises to be an exciting event that visitors to the Congress in Seattle will not want to miss.

The Honors Assembly, which is held annually in conjunction with the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, is open to all Congress attendees. This year's event will be held on Monday, Nov. 12, from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

However, this prestigious awards ceremony is just one aspect of ASME's Honors and Awards Program, which acknowledges general technical achievements, great strides in specific fields, commitment to particular issues and values, and lifelong contributions in the fields of mechanical and multidisciplinary engineering. These esteemed prizes honor the range of global achievements, from standards development to social improvement, from recognition of lifetime accomplishments to achievements by recent graduates.

While only a select few of the awards will be presented at the Honors Assembly in Seattle next month, many others will be bestowed at luncheons, dinners and lectures held during the Congress, or at division-level gatherings held throughout the year.

The ASME Foundation is charged with managing the endowed funds for all Society-level awards. (For a list of these honors, visit www.asme.org/Governance/Honors/SocietyAwards.) Through endowments created by donations from ASME members, industry and ASME divisions, the Foundation provides approximately $250,000 in annual funding for the Honors and Awards Program.

For example, the Frank Kreith Energy Award was endowed by his family in honor of Kreith's contributions to the fields of heat transfer and energy. That award, honoring an individual for significant contributions to a secure energy future through innovations in conservation or renewable energy technology, will be presented at this year's Honors Assembly to D. Yogi Goswami in recognition of his research and his educational and societal contributions in the field of solar energy.

Awards may also be created by a planned gift, most usually a bequest. The Charles T. Main Student Section Awards, which recognize student members who have contributed more than one year to the program and operation of an ASME student section, was created by a bequest from his estate.

At the Members and Students Luncheon on Sunday, Nov. 11, at the Congress, the Charles T. Main Gold Medal will be presented to Daniel Joseph Hanna for his distinguished service as president of the ASME student section at Drexel University and as chair of the Early Career Forum Committee. Danielle Williams will receive the Silver Medal in recognition of her long-standing leadership of the ASME student section at Virginia Tech and for a deep commitment to fostering diversity within ASME.

In contrast, the ASME Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies Inc. Medal was endowed by a combination of individual contributors and a major corporation. The medal, which recognizes outstanding contributions toward developing and implementing practices, processes and programs that value and strategically manage diversity and inclusiveness, will be presented to Genesys Works, a Texas-based company, for its effectiveness in providing an innovative education solution that enables underprivileged high school students to join the economic mainstream with the knowledge, industry certifications and work experience required to succeed as technical professionals. The Johnson & Johnson Medal is also conferred at the Congress Member-Student Luncheon on Nov. 11.

Professionals and academics around the world recognize the honors and awards funded by the ASME Foundation as benchmarks for contributions of the highest level. In acknowledging the hard work and dedication of mechanical engineers, ASME amplifies the prestige and status that the industry offers. For additional information on the ASME Foundation, please see http://foundation.asme.org. To make a contribution to the ASME Foundation, please see http://foundation.asme.org/Giving.

— Mary James Legatski

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