Graduates Shine at Convocation
Nearly 700 family and friends packed the Student Union Memorial Center Ballroom on Saturday, May 12, to celebrate 26 graduate students and 69 undergraduates completing rigorous programs in chemical and environmental engineering.
Extraordinary Student Accomplishments
- Carter Bakarich, Sara Slosky, Cherell Ward-Rucker and Sydney Wilson – College of Engineering Ambassadors
- Patrick Lohr and Bryce Royball – Don H. White Award for academic achievement
- Namrah Habib, Matthew Kingzett and Sara Slosky - Dr. William Scott Bousman Memorial Award for excellence in the lab
- Rachel Braun and Jaewook Choi – Outstanding TA
- Karen Leon, Samantha Louzek, Jacob Rischar and Sara Slosky - Best CHEE senior design team for their project "Monoclonal Antibody Production for Cancer Immunotherapy"
University Awards
- Leah Kaplan – Merrill P. Freeman Medal
- Namrah Habib – Robie Gold Medal
(See "Outstanding UA Engineering Seniors Awarded for Dedication to Service and Society" for more about Leah and Namrah.)
College of Engineering Design Day Recognition
- Teagan Baacke, Elijah Foster, Marissa Gautier and Esteban Jimenez – Innovation in Manufacturing
- Bowen Clark, Amanda Soles, Kubale Shamabanse and Derek Hogue – Best Engineering Analysis
- Austin Ziska - Honeywell Award for Team Leadership
(See "Seniors Step Up at Engineering Design Day 2018" for more about outstanding senior capstone performance.)
Additionally, Joseph Chang earned CHEE's first BS in environmental engineering, and Cassandra Galvez and Joseph Schlosser received concurrent BS degrees in chemical engineering and environmental engineering.
Heartfelt Reflections
Sarah Moore (PhD/ChE) and Leah Kaplan (BS/ChE) inspired classmates with their messages.
Moore shared a hard-won lesson from her time with Engineers Without Borders – the importance of including experts from other disciplines to solve big problems.
"All the easy problems have already been solved; only the hard problems remain," said Moore, who developed a sanitation project for a rural community in Bolivia plagued with waterborne illness. "We will need every tool in humanity's collective toolbox to solve them."
The project failed because the community wasn't engaged, something that an anthropologist could have predicted, Moore explained.
"It takes more than the ability to model a heat exchanger to solve the major obstacles facing our world today."
Leah Kaplan used a block flow diagram to show the undergraduate journey. She characterized freshman year as "feedstock selection," sophomore year as "assembly and testing," junior year as "strength testing" and senior year as "polishing."
Reminiscing about the hurdles, frustrations, camaraderie, epic study sessions, hard work, doughnuts and fun along the way, she concluded "Now you can see this is no simple process, but man you can't argue with the quality of the product."
In Praise of Support, Teamwork and Trust
Department chair Anthony Muscat spoke of the often invisible elements that lead to success. Technical skills matter, but creating an environment of support, teamwork and trust matters just as much. His parting words left graduates with two questions to ponder:
"What are your responsibilities and expectations on the teams that you will be part of?" And, "What do you think is needed to build the type of trust that allows a team to solve significant and urgent problems?"