ASME Foundation awards scholarships to 50 students

Maxine Rosen
ASME Operations

The ASME Foundation has awarded $140,000 in scholarships for the 2001-02 academic year to 50 students, both undergraduate and graduate, and stipends to five colleges to aid incoming freshmen. More than monetary support, the grants provide encouragement to stay a demanding course and recognition for exemplary scholastic and extracurricular achievements.

Robert Fox and the ASME Scholarship Committee, which he chairs, reviewed 339 applications for 45 of the awards totaling $85,000, up from 332 applicants, 44 awards and $79,000 last year. Fox and the committee had the daunting task of selecting the recipients, whose median grade point average was 3.94, from a field of 76 finalists with a median of 3.83.

Amip Shah

The Kenneth Andrew Roe Scholarship of $9,000 was awarded to Amip Shah, president of the ASME student section at Rowan University. Under his leadership, the group has dedicated itself to "what we love most — mechanical engineering," and to organizing activities like "Engineering is Great!" day, an event aimed at encouraging women and underrepresented minorities to pursue a career in engineering. Amip was instrumental in writing the winning proposal for a Clarke Scholarship for his school.

Timothy Fahler, a student at Purdue University, and Timothy Wilde, a student at Michigan State University, each received a $3,500 Melvin R. Green Scholarship.

Elizabeth Baldwin

Elizabeth Baldwin was one of three winners of the $3,000 Garland Duncan Scholarship. Through projects such as converting a gas-fueled pickup truck to run on electricity and the ASME student design project, she has become intrigued by the interaction of man and machine.

Currently the chair of the North Carolina State University ASME student section, she plans to continue her education at the graduate level in robotics.

The two other Garland Duncan Scholarship winners are Michael Geruso, a student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, and Mary Thompson, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The $2,000 F. W. "Beich" Beichley Scholarship went to Ivanic Ziga of Norwich University in Vermont.

Ziga said, "I believe that I can make a large contribution later on in my career in the mechanical engineering field of the aerospace industry." He plans to go on to graduate school.

Catherine Mescher

Catherine Mescher, at the University of California, Irvine, received the $2,000 William J. and Marijane E. Adams, Jr. Scholarship, which will allow her to stay a fifth year and complete requirements for a minor in biomedical engineering. She will be able to spend more time on a senior mechanical engineering project designing an optical probe for the noninvasive detection of cancer in epithelial tissues through optical spectroscopy, a project with the potential to play a role in cancer detection and diagnostics.

This is the second time that Orion Crisafulli, a student at Princeton University, who is fascinated with anything that flies, has received a Frank William & Dorothy Miller ASME Auxiliary Scholarship.

In accepting the $2,000 award, he said, "It symbolizes the spirit of good will that is characteristic of the engineering profession — reaching out to help others in need, with the ultimate goal of designing and building a better world for all."

His ultimate objective is "to help pioneer the design and development of next generation space transportation vehicles and technologies."

A $2,000 Frank William & Dorothy Miller ASME Auxiliary Scholarship was also awarded to Crystal Kornak of the University of Michigan.

Lynette Hall

Lynnette Hall of Virginia Tech is one of 17 students to receive a $1,500 John & Elsa Gracik Scholarship. While clearly carving out her own path, Lynette was inspired by an older brother and sister, both mechanical engineers.

She told the Foundation that she will be working on "the Hybrid Electric Vehicle Team developing fuel cell technology that can be integrated into standard vehicles of any type. This project is most beneficial in developing new options for energy-efficient vehicles."

This is the fourth year that Parag Gupta of Vanderbilt University won a Gracik Scholarship.

In the future, he "hopes to give back to a community of scholars just as the founder of the John & Elsa Gracik Scholarship has done."

The other recipients of the Gracik Scholarship are Daniel J. Booth, University of Texas; Elizabeth J. Farquhar, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; Mark Gariety, University of Dayton; Carol Harwood, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology; Derrick Helm, University of Alabama; Ryan Keller, Kansas State University; Andrea Kirkendall, LeTourneau University (Longview, Texas); Tony Koenigsknecht, Michigan State; Chesley Austin, Brown University; Renata Melamud, Carnegie Mellon University; Jacqueline Norman, Northern Illinois University; Nicolaus L. Rhenwrick, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University; Darrell Sharp, Pennsylvania State University, Altoona Campus; Keith Spalsbury, Cleveland State University; and Andrew Valiente, LeTourneau.

Kiran D'Souza

Mechanical engineering is a family affair for Kiran D'Souza, one of 17 students to receive the $1,500 ASME Foundation Scholarship. A volunteer in many organizations and a developing leader of the ASME student section, where he has been scholarship chair and membership chair, he follows in the footsteps of one older brother who is the current ASME student section president and two others who held similar high office when they were in the mechanical engineering program at the University of Michigan.

D'Souza has participated in Engineering Service Day, Habitat for Humanity and the local Ronald McDonald House, where he cooks food for families with sick children, all the while maintaining a 3.83 GPA.

He has earned the school's Engineering Scholarship of Honor, the Branstrom Freshman Book Prize, Regent Merit Scholarship, and University, Class and Dean's list honors.

The $1,500 ASME Foundation Scholarship was also awarded to Tiffany Boarts of Case Western University; Kathryn Foley, at the University of Wisconsin; Philip Frank, at Stevens Institute of Technology; Anastasios Hart, MIT; Matthew Kostura, Cornell University; Christine Laliberte, Northeastern University; Roberto Montane, University of South Florida; Aisha Oke, San Jose State University; Brian Pandya, Penn State; Candis Paul, City College of New York; Jared Petersen, California Maritime Academy; Owens Thunes, Boise State University; Esther Villars, CCNY; Collins Ward, MIT; Robert Webster, Community College of Baltimore County and Johns Hopkins University; and Tamaki Yanagita, University of North Texas.

Michael Durand

The Robert F. Sammataro Pressure Vessel and Piping Division Memorial Scholarship was recently established to commemorate the life of this past chair of the division. Michael Durand, a student at Virginia Tech, was the winner of the $1,000 award.

Four Graduate Teaching Fellows were named, with each one receiving a $5,000 stipend. They are Wayne Johnson, Georgia Institute of Technology; Heather Langford, Clemson University; David Angstadt, Lehigh University; and Silvia Ferrari, Princeton. The ASME Graduate Teaching Fellowship Program encourages outstanding graduate students, especially women and minorities, to pursue a doctorate in mechanical engineering and to select engineering education as a profession.

Launched this year, the ASME /FIRST Scholarship Program is designed to sustain the interest and enthusiasm for mechanical engineering generated by the FIRST robotics competition. The award is given to a high school senior and FIRST participant who will study mechanical engineering in college.

Nerissa Lindenfelser, who won the $5,000 award, is a freshman in Penn State's mechanical engineering program. Jan Enderle, senior project engineer with Xerox and a long-time participant in FIRST, said, "She took the initiative to help integrate the subsystems at the start of the project. She served as coach for the student drivers and mentored younger students on the team. Nerissa actually went through the force and moment equations using free body diagrams to calculate the forces required for the hooking subsystem."

The Clarke Scholarship, also given this year for the first time, was awarded to five colleges based on the activities and accomplishments of their ASME student sections.

The selection was made by a committee representing the ASME Auxiliary and ASME Foundation, beneficiaries of the Clarke bequest, and the Council on Education.

Purdue University, Rowan University, Virginia Tech, the University of Dayton and the University of Wisconsin each received a $6,000 grant that they, in turn, will use for scholarships for entering freshmen interested in mechanical engineering.

For information and applications on scholarships and fellowships, students and parents should visit www.asme.org/educate/aid.

To make contributions that will enhance existing programs or to endow a new scholarship or fellowship, contact David J. Soukup, Director of Development, ASME Foundation, Three Park Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016-5990, (212) 591-7397 or soukupd@asme.org.

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