Student Awards

Recognizing students for outstanding academic achievement, leadership and contributions to the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering

Outstanding Research Award – recognizing tudents for their research contributions within the department:

Owen Shiflett, Riley Damm

Outstanding Research and Leadership Award – recognizing tudents for their research contributions and leadership within the department:

John Meaden

Outstanding Academic Awards – recognizing students in each major with the highest cumulative point-hour ratio in their respective classes:

Mechanical Engineering Recipients

• Avi Balakirsky, Bennett Brabrand, Gus Cordonnier, Rohan Deshpande, Aymane Erraki, George Hajjar, Debbie Hodson, Drew Katz, Mitch Oinonen, Joey Onderko, Robert Orr, Brandon Paul, Tommy Polakowski, Amy Sarle, Stacey Savchenko, Lara Schober, Aidan Stalker, David Szoke and Cathy Wang

Aerospace Engineering Recipients

• Cesar Aoun, Gene Harada, Jonathan Martin, Hefei Xu, Jordan Bechtol, Spenser Eason, Noah Hiler and Nick Maggs

Outstanding Senior in Aerospace Engineering Award – presented to an aerospace engineering student who has not only excelled academically, but has also demonstrated a great deal of leadership and community involvement

Victoria Murnieks

Undergraduate Teaching Associate Awards – recognizing exceptional teaching provided by an undergraduate teaching associate in mechanical or aerospace engineering.

Christopher Johnson

Graduate Teaching Associate Awards – recognizing exceptional teaching provided by a graduate teaching associate in mechanical or aerospace engineering.

Anna Lebron

Rob Wolf Outstanding Senior Award Finalists – recognizing outstanding senior mechanical engineering students.

To be considered for the award, students must have a 3.0 minimum cumulative point-hour ratio and meet at least two of the following criteria: be active in a professional or honorary society; have demonstrated leadership in a campus activity or done community service; have participated in campus-wide activities; and have worked during academic year to defray costs.

Each year a committee is formed to select finalists and one awardee Finalists: Elise Kemper, James Dobrozsi

Rob Wolf Outstanding Senior Award honoring a senior mechanical engineering student in memory of Rob Wolf

The Rob Wolf Outstanding Senior Award is presented to a mechanical engineering student in memory of Rob Wolf, a 1997 graduate. The award recognizes students who excel academically while actively participating in department, college, university and community organizations. This year’s award was presented to Trace Nguyen.

Trace is recognized for his farreaching campus and community involvement. Trace has been a member and leader for programs across the university including the Engineering Career Services, Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers, Lambda Phi Epsilon, Vietnamese Student Association, Design/Build/Fly Competition Team, BuckeyeCurrent Competition Team, Trans*Mission, Asian American Community Services, and Equitas Health.

In 2020, Trace chartered the Lambda Phi Epsilon to break the stigma of Greek Life on campus and to aid in rebuilding the bridges that were once present between APIDA organizations on campus. He is a mentor and holds workshops in his role at the Engineering Career Services and an active member of both the Design/Build/Fly and Buckeye Current competition teams.

Trace has served in executive roles for the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers since 2020. In these roles, he has hosted a Midwest Regional Conference at Ohio State and the OSU chapter of SASE was awarded the Most Influential Chapter Award as the best chapter nationally that academic year.

Trace also has held many leadership roles within the Vietnamese Student Association where he was able to celebrate, educate the community on and advocate for Vietnamese culture.

Three MAE alumni celebrated for exceptional achievements, service at College Alumni Awards

Abarrier-breaking leader in higher education and the arts, an internationally recognized nuclear engineering expert and one of the nation’s leading design justice advocates are among the 15 alumni honored during the 25th Annual Excellence in Engineering and Architecture Awards on September 30, 2022.

The celebration recognizes alumni from across the College of Engineering who have achieved distinction in their fields or through their extraordinary service contributions since graduating from The Ohio State University.

“We are proud to recognize these 15 esteemed College of Engineering alumni who have distinguished themselves as changemakers, leaders, innovators and passionate volunteers,” said Dean Ayanna Howard, the Monte Ahuja Endowed Dean’s Chair. “Their impactful efforts to improve our world are an inspiration.”

American Nuclear Society President Steven A. Arndt (BS ’81, engineering physics; MS ’84, PhD ’10, nuclear engineering) was awarded the Benjamin G. Lamme Meritorious Achievement Medal. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory distinguished scientist led the United States’ support programs to the former Soviet Union following the Chernobyl accident and as part of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s response to the Fukushima accident.

Distinguished Alumni Award for Academic Excellence

Kenneth Ray Diller (BS ’66, MS ’67, mechanical engineering) is an experienced leader, accomplished scholar and innovator. A professor of biomedical and mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, his technology for simple and safe thermal methods helps people get to sleep more effectively and drop their overnight blood pressure without medication.

Aimee T. Ulstad (BS ’84, mechanical engineering) is an award-winning associate professor of practice in Ohio State’s Department of Integrated Systems Engineering who brings her 30+ years of professional industry experience to the classroom. She was also part of the core team that developed the four-year Bachelor of Science in Engineering Technology degree program now offered on three regional campuses.

Reflections from an EcoCAR alumna

M.J. Yatsko was first exposed to the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) during a high school internship as a student at Columbus School for Girls (CSG). She enjoyed her internship experience so much that she went on to receive both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Ohio State in Mechanical Engineering. Now, she is an energy architecture lead on electric vehicles at General Motors.

Her high school internship was where Yatsko was first exposed to Ohio State’s EcoCAR team, which she was a member of from 2010 to 2016 and a team lead for two of those years, during which EcoCAR had great success. Yatsko says she wanted to go into something that was related to both engineering and caring about the environment. Being on the EcoCAR team and working on a hybrid electric vehicle was the perfect combination of those two things.

M.J. Yatsko

Following in Yatsko’s footsteps, her younger sister joined the team in 2015 and became the project manager the following year. Yatsko attributes her interest in cars to her father, who is a car salesman. This exposed her and her sister to cars from a young age.

At GM, she works with advanced programs to balance the range and performance requirements that electric vehicles need to meet. “I love working on the early advanced side of development because you really get to shape what the vehicle will be,” she says. Yatsko works with other Ohio State EcoCAR alumni, as well as EcoCAR alumni from other schools. She says, “I’m actually really good friends with people from other schools, and it’s fun to have that camaraderie between us.”

She is also a member of a leadership book club run by an Ohio State EcoCAR alumni. Yatsko explained the value of her time on the EcoCAR team and how it was helpful in her transition to GM. In addition to the obvious technical skills she learned, she also learned valuable presentation skills. At competition, EcoCAR team members are graded on technical presentations. Yatsko says, “I get comments all the time about how well I’m able to deliver technical information to different audiences and I think ‘That’s all EcoCAR.’ You figure out who your audience is and then you describe this really complicated concept.”