Our 2021 Awards Presentation recognizes outstanding graduate students accomplishments from the academic year.
We thank our generous alumni, friends and partners for making these awards possible for our graduate students. Their generosity is critical in furthering the mission of our department, and we thank each of our benefactors and scholarship donors for their continued support.
This award recognizes outstanding graduate students enrolled in the Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in MatSE.
Recipients: Azimkhan Kozhakhmetov, Caleb Meredith, and Leixin Miao
This award recognizes a graduate student who exhibits outstanding leadership and service both in and outside of the program that benefits MatSE.
Recipients: Katelyn Kirchner, Chloe Skidmore, Alex Wilson-Heid, Angela Cleri, Tatiana Kuznetsova, John Shimanek, Sarah Lowum, Matt Mancini, and Nicole Hall
This award gives our graduate students the opportunity to enhance their communication skills and deepen their knowledge of materials science and engineering. This award recognizes six of our students for outstanding achievement as a teaching assistant.
Recipients: Brandon Bocklund, Brandon Bocklund, Andres Fest Carreno, Abbey Knoepfel, Jeffrey Kronz, and Sai Bachu
(Two winners this year)
The MatSE Safety Awareness Organization (MSAO) selects an outstanding undergraduate or graduate student who consistently goes above and beyond the high safety standards set by the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State. This is someone who watches out for others, constantly strives to improve the safety perspective of their lab, and works to spread a message of the importance of safety.
"Ama Agyapong has been an active advocate for laboratory safety since she arrived on campus as a new graduate student. She serves as one of two student representatives on the Materials Research Institute (MRI) safety committee. Over the past year, AMA led efforts at MRI to guide return to work efforts and ensure that all researchers were educated prior to returning to work in research labs after the initial COVID shutdown. She organized a town hall as well as participated in making a video on building entry protocols. Also, she was an invited panelist at a “COVID-19 Impacts” discussion at the 62nd Electronic Materials Conference in June of 2020. As the only student on the panel, her participation garnered positive feedback on her poise, knowledge, and articulate speaking. She is not only a shining light for safety at Penn State, but in the broader scientific community as well."
"Alex Vera demonstrates a consistent commitment to laboratory safety through his actions as the laboratory manager for the Josh Robinson group. He is proactive in completing the tasks required for that job, but also goes above and beyond to help the materials community in general. He was the first lab manager to develop a COVID-19 Safe SOP at MRI, which served as a template for the SOPs put into place by other groups. As a student representative on the MRI safety committee, he is an active participant in meetings and provides leadership beyond expectations. One area in which he has been active since he started graduate school was as an organizer of the annual Materials Safety Olympics. Last year, when there was a question of how to put on such an event during the pandemic, he single-handedly developed online events that allowed the Olympics to go on and promote safety in a fun manner. Alex’s example of living a safety culture leadership in enhancing that culture is inspiring."
