Civil and Environmental Engineering Diploma Ceremony: May 8, 2026

CI VI L AND E N V I RO N M E N T A L E N G I N E E RI N G Diploma Ceremony May 8, 2026

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

PROGRAM WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS

Community and Engagement Excellence Award

This award is presented to a senior who exhibits outstanding leadership and service.

This award is presented to a CEE undergraduate or graduate student who demonstrates exceptional leadership in fostering collaboration among diverse groups—including students, faculty, staff, across different departments, and local and global organizations— to create meaningful academic, social, and cultural impact. The recipient actively initiates, leads or contributes to activities that promote long-term positive community engagement while inspiring others to participate and sustain these efforts.

Lawrence G. Cartwright Service Award

Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award

This award is presented to a senior who exhibits outstanding professional and university service.

This award is presented to a student who exhibits outstanding teaching ability.

Gregory V. Lowry Interim Department Head and Hamerschlag University Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering

PRESENTATION OF AWARDS ASCE Outstanding Civil Engineering Student Award

H.A. Thomas Sr. Scholarship Award This award is presented to a senior who exhibits outstanding scholarship.

Harold A. Thomas (1885-1973), Professor of Civil Engineering at Carnegie Tech, was an expert in hydraulics and was both an experimentalist and a mathematical modeler.

Civil and Environmental Engineering Research Award This award is presented to a senior who has conducted outstanding research.

James P. Romualdi Civil and Environmental Engineering Award This award is presented to a senior who exhibits excellence in the traditional areas of civil engineering, both academic and practical.

As an alumnus and longtime faculty member, James Romualdi touched the lives of many students in CEE. He was an expert in structural engineering, concrete design, failure analysis, and transportation engineering. His research led to the innovation and patent of fiberreinforced concrete.

Paul P. Christiano Distinguished Service Award This award is presented to a graduate student who exhibits outstanding professional and university service.

Paul P. Christiano (1942-2001), an alumnus and faculty member of the Civil Engineering department, was known for his dedication to Carnegie Mellon.

Christiano was an expert in structural and geotechnical engineering and led the graduate program in these areas.

During his tenure at Carnegie Mellon, he served as CEE department head, dean of the College of Engineering and university provost, and helped lead an educational movement that fostered the growth of interdisciplinary research on campus.

Mao Yisheng Outstanding Dissertation Award This award is presented to a Ph.D. student who submits an outstanding doctoral dissertation.

Mao Yisheng was the first recipient of a Ph.D. from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1921. His career was an outstanding example of innovation in civil engineering.

AWARDING OF DEGREES Bachelor of Science Master of Science Doctor of Philosophy

GRADUATES BACHELOR OF SCIENCE Civil Engineering Annaliese Rose Brannon ◆ Alexander Ater Capestany ◆

Environmental Engineering Paul Amir Davis

Additional Major: Engineering and Public Policy

Alessandra Delorenzo ◆

Margarita Mergie Cejudo Arita

Additional Major: Engineering and Public Policy

Edwin Chen** Jose Eduardo Echeverria ◆ Angela Fan ◆

Additional Major: Engineering and Public Policy

Aurora Bondonna Fuchs ◆ Ezra Jinich** Lillian Dahnby Keith** ◆ 

Chase Alexander Gumbs

Liting Jiang ◆

Minor: Robotics

Jaden Simmons McCleery Brown

Minor: Film and Media Studies

Lauren Taeyoung Oh ◆

Additional Major: Engineering and Public Policy

Matteo Joseph Perillo ◆

Minor: Arabic Studies

Additional Major: Engineering and Public Policy

Jordyn Maria Le 

Jana Emma Reiser ◆

Neveen Atef Khalil ◆

Additional Major: Engineering and Public Policy

Carlyle Frances Najarian ◆ Minor: Environmental and Sustainability Studies

Molly Jewell Smith

Ester Schneiderova ◆

Minor: Environmental and Sustainability Studies

Brian Kaveh Spradley ◆

Additional Major: Engineering and Public Policy

Additional Major: Engineering and Public Policy

Abigail G. Stech

Katherine Studentsova ◆

Ella Katherine Vander Velde ◆

Minor: Hispanic Studies

Kundhavi Tiruchinapalli ◆ Samantha Kate Vu ◆ ● Yujun Wu ◆

Additional Major: Engineering and Public Policy

Isabella Williams ◆

Minor: Materials Science and Engineering

Minor: Game Design

Tianze Zhou ◆

Additional Major: Human-Computer Interaction Minor: Business Administration

* GRADUATED AUGUST 2025

◆ UNIVERSITY HONORS

● COLLEGE HONORS

** GRADUATED DECEMBER 2025 ANDREW CARNEGIE SCHOLAR

 GEORGE WASHINGTON PRIZE HONORABLE MENTION

GRADUATES MASTER OF SCIENCE Artificial Intelligence Engineering – Civil and Environmental Engineering

Elizabeth Krauss

Ruike Chen**

Clara Rose Liddick**

Aryaman Shandilya**

Esteban Londono**

Daren Yao**

Yixin Ma**

Jinsong Yuan**

Ziyuan Ma**

Computational Mechanics

Artificial Intelligence Engineering – Civil and Environmental Engineering – Applied Study

Justin H. Oh

Maryam Khodadad*

Chenyang Peng*

Katherine Piper**

Natural Premier**

Environmental Management and Science

Alison Catherine Lavery**

Rutvik Nitin Joshi**

Kenedy Frances Sanchez

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Zhou Wang Jiarui Zhang Haowei Zhao

Janbol Jangabyl**

Mao Wang**

Colin Richard Doody

Lei Liao**

Maulana Panji Gumilang Rumra**

Civil and Computer Engineering

Civil and Environmental Engineering – Research

Keerat Singh

Xinyi Tang**

Architecture-Engineering Construction Management

Jiayu Wang**

Ayesha Agnihotri**

Mingyu Wang**

Trijya Bhardwaj**

Tianqi Wang**

Carleigh Rose Cusick**

Albin Weliczker Wells*

Morgan Engel Abbruscato

Jingwu Wen**

Gopika Danayakapura Somashekar**

Andrew Bae

Yu Xia**

Rounak Godhkey**

Dylan Lane Bonanno

Junyu Xie**

Dishita Goel**

Zican Cao**

Sri Yolan Yuliansa**

Athul Janesh Kumar Nair**

Barbara Castro-Schell**

Linman Zhang**

Vaishnavi Nityanand Kini**

Dunsin Fadojutimi*

Yitong Zhang**

Carla Sofia Gomez-Fonseca**

Tianye Zhou**

Anupoojapurnima Manivannan**

Harrison Jacob Green Vianey Guadiana** Dalton Herschel Harmon Joon Sun Hwang

Janhavi Hemant Patil**

Civil and Environmental Engineering – Applied Study

Samhita Shyam**

Tianyue Zhao**

Lisa Santosh Souz**

Tanya Singh**

Aakash Vipparla**

Lauren Janicke**

Sifei Zhu**

Lillian Dahnby Keith

* GRADUATED AUGUST 2025

◆ UNIVERSITY HONORS

● COLLEGE HONORS

** GRADUATED DECEMBER 2025 ANDREW CARNEGIE SCHOLAR

 GEORGE WASHINGTON PRIZE HONORABLE MENTION

GRADUATES DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Mehul Bapat

Computational Mechanics Molecular mechanics of interface-dominated transport in soft macromolecular systems Advisor: Gerald J. Wang

Kevin Bryant Freymiller

Jiachao Liu**

Civil and Environmental Engineering Coupled energy and passenger mobility systems: interdependency modeling, joint optimization and pricing Advisor: Sean Qian

Miguel Mora**

Jordan Malique Joseph*

Ozan Baris Mulayim

Civil and Environmental Engineering Assessing residential energy efficiency retrofit adoption potential and societal impacts across the US Advisors: Destenie Nock; Constantine Samaras

Daniel Mutahwa Katusele**

Computational Mechanics Microstructural Design, Multistability, and Effective Response of Soft Multifunctional Composites Advisor: Kaushik Dayal

Daryn Lee**

Civil and Environmental Engineering Measuring and Improving Public Transit Accessibility Using Large-Scale Mobility Data Advisor: Sean Qian

Chaochao Lin

Civil and Environmental Engineering Value of Information for Binary Engineering Systems in Single-agent and Multi-agent Management Analysis Advisor: Matteo Pozzi

Benjamin Therrien

Civil and Environmental Engineering Curb-aware Network Models Leveraging Hetrogeneous Data: Learning and Optimization Advisor: Sean Qian

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering and Public Policy Nanofertilizer Engineering and Risk Communication Advisors: Baruch Fischoff; Gerald J. Wang

Hairong Wang**

Civil and Environmental Engineering A Process-Oriented Energy Management Framework for Housing Manufacturing Advisor: Pingbo Tang

Civil and Environmental Engineering Advanced Sensor Technologies and AI Algorithms for Autonomous Site Characterization by Robotic Platform Advisor: Gregory V. Lowry

Civil and Environmental Engineering Towards Semantic Interoperability and Adaptive Control of Autonomous Grid-Interactive Buildings Advisor: Mario Berges

Saptarshi Saha**

Computational Mechanics Uncovering Topological Defects in Disordered Materials Advisors: Gerald J. Wang; Amit Acharya

Preom C. Sarkar**

Civil and Environmental Engineering Biological Selenium Reduction and Recovery in Flue Gas Desulfurization Wastewater Advisor(s): Gregory V. Lowry

Siddharth Singh

Zhichen Wang*

Civil and Environmental Engineering Framework for Automated Change Propagation from Building Information Models to Building Energy Models Advisors: Burcu Akinci; Mario Berges

Albin Weliczker Wells

Civil and Environmental Engineering From the Ground Up: Integrating Field Measurements with Remote Sensing for Improved Glacier Evolution Modeling Advisor: David Rounce

Emily J. Zuetell

Computational Mechanics A Study of Bulk and Interfacial Line Defect Mediated Dynamic Plasticity and a Duality-based Computational Technique for 1-D Nonconvex Elasticity Advisor: Amit Acharya

Engineering and Public Policy and Civil and Environmental Engineering Climate Resilient Communities in Data-Scarce Contexts: Operationalizing Remote Sensing and Machine Learning for Local Climate Risk Assessment Advisor: Paulina Jaramillo

* GRADUATED AUGUST 2025

◆ UNIVERSITY HONORS

● COLLEGE HONORS

** GRADUATED DECEMBER 2025 ANDREW CARNEGIE SCHOLAR

 GEORGE WASHINGTON PRIZE HONORABLE MENTION

FACULTY Amit Acharya

Susan Finger

Fethiye Ozis

Peter Adams

Katherine A. Flanigan

Matteo Pozzi

Burcu Akinci

James H. Garrett Jr.

Zhen (Sean) Qian

Mario Bergés

Kelvin Gregory

David Rounce

Jacobo Bielak

Corey Harper

Constantine Samaras

Sarah Christian

Chris T. Hendrickson

Mitchell J. Small

Donald Coffelt

Su Jiang

Pingbo Tang

Kaushik Dayal

Gregory V. Lowry

Gerald J. Wang

David A. Dzombak

Joe D. Moore

Sarah Fakhreddine

Destenie Nock

STAFF Brian Belowich

Allison McLachlan

Cathy Schaefer

Lindsey Breyak

Geena Provenzano

Mei Tao

Andrea Francioni Rooney

G. Ronald Ripper

David Vey

Ryan Gent

Melissa Ritchie

Christian Woodfin

The faculty and staff of the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department would like to thank you for attending our diploma ceremony.