ASME member Claudia Arias was honored last spring by the University of Texas at El Paso, with its first-ever Diamond in the Rough Award. Arias, who received a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the university last December, received the award at the university's spring commencement ceremony. The award recognizes a student with outstanding academic performance and community service who has demonstrated a potential for even more success. Arias, who grew up in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, graduated from the Preparatoria El Chamizal before attending the University of Texas. While at school in El Paso, she was active in several student organizations, including ASME, the Society of Women Engineers, and the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society. Now a graduate student in the University of Texas at El Paso's engineering college, Arias plans to earn a doctoral degree and become a professor of engineering.

 
ASME Fellow Meyer (Mike) Benzakein, professor and chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Ohio State University, was named the recipient of the 2007 Reed Aeronautics Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The Reed Aeronautics Award is the highest honor an individual can receive for achievements in the field of aeronautical science and engineering. The award in named after aeronautical engineer Sylvanus A. Reed, a founding member of AIAA in 1932. Benzakein began working at Ohio State in 2004, when he was named the Wright Brothers Institute Professor in Aerospace Engineering. Previously, he had been the general manager of Advanced Technology and Military Engineering at GE Aircraft Engines. He has been a member of ASME since 1996.

 
Bharat Bhushan, an ASME Fellow and professor of mechanical engineering at Ohio State University, has received the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award. The nonprofit Alexander von Humboldt Foundation was established by the Federal Republic of Germany for the promotion of international research cooperation. This is the second time Bhushan has won the award; he was also a recipient in 1998-99. Bhushan's research focuses on scanning probe microscopy for nanotribology and nanomechanics as applied to surface and mechanical characterization, contact modeling, adhesion, friction, wear and lubrication. A longtime ASME volunteer, Bhushan is currently a member-at-large of the Systems and Design Technical Group, where he has held a number of posts over the years. He also has served on the ASME Nominating Committee and in the Information Storage and Process Systems Division. Bhushan has been a recipient of five ASME medals: the C.R. Richards Memorial Award, the Melville Medal, the G.L. Larson Memorial Award, the Burt L. Newkirk Award, and the Henry Hess Award. He has been an ASME member since 1973.

Shelby Highsmith, Jr., a doctoral candidate at Georgia Institute of Technology, won the 2006 Student Paper Award sponsored by the ASTM International Committee E08 on Fatigue and Fracture. The Student Paper Award is given by the committee to encourage students to develop, present, and publish high-quality research papers in the field of fracture and subcritical growth. Highsmith's paper, "New Specimen Designs for 3-D Mixed-Mode Crack Growth Testing," focused on the influence of shear modes on normal crack growth direction and modal transition by analyzing and testing two new specimen designs to generate 3-D mixities of Modes I, II and III simultaneously. Highsmith, who lives in Atlanta, has been a member of ASME since 2004.

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