Kudos: Honors and Awards

ADVANCED: The team of Colin Braun ’23, Katie Casson ’23 Th’26, Sarah Hutchinson ’22 Th’25, Sierra Lee ’24, Sarah Nam Th’25, and Grace Turner ’23 Th’26 make up one of 40 advancing to the finals of the 2024 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Design Challenge. Advised by Professor Benoit Cushman-Roisin and Thayer alum Carolyn McShea ’18, the team designed a net-zero retrofit of a three-apartment structure in Wilder, Vt.

AWARDED: The Class of 1982 Engineering and Computer Science Center earned the 2023 merit award for Excellence in Architectural Design from the N.H. chapter of the American Institute of Architects for the way the building “fosters collaboration to promote synergies.”

HONORED: Trinity College has awarded Professor Eric Fossum, the inventor of the CMOS image sensor “camera on a chip” used in smart-phones and webcams, the inaugural President’s Medal for Science and Innovation from Trinity College. Fossum is an alumnus and former trustee of the college.

COMPLETED: PhD candidates Roman Vasyltsiv Th’27 and Savannah Decker Th’25—both in the Medical Physics Education Program—tied for first place in the early investigator competition at the New England Chapter of the American Association of Physics in Medicine (NEAAPM) meeting.

CONVENED: Dean Alexis Abramson and President Sian Beilock joined educators, lawmakers, and industry leaders in Washington, D.C., for the Education for Diversification and Growth in Engineering (EDGE) Consortium summit to help advance the $52.7 billion federal CHIPS and Science Act.

PRESENTED: Engineering sciences majors Matthew Timofeev ’25 and Vann Guarnieri ’21 Th’22 and Professor William Scheideler presented research at the 2023 Materials Research Society meeting. They also coauthored—with Julia Huddy Th’24—the study “Engineering Perovskite Solar Cells for Efficient Wireless Power Transfer,” published in Applied Physics Letters (APL) Energy.

REFERENCED: A New Yorker opinion piece by computer sciences professor Dan Rockmore—“How Much of the World Is It Possible to Model?”—mentions the work of Professors David Roberts and Keith Paulsen Th’84 Th’86.

CONSIDERED: In a column for the Valley News, “A Pipeline That Can Mitigate Global Warming?” Professor Dan Olson discusses new projects to transport CO2 for long-term storage in underground rock formations.

PUBLISHED: Professor Geoffrey Parker—director of the Master of Engineering Management (MEM) program and interim faculty director for the Irving Institute for Energy and Society—coauthored an opinion piece for MIT Sloan Management Review titled, “Why Manufacturers Need a Phased Approach to Digital Transformation.” He was also recently ranked in the “Thinkers50” for the third time.

AWARDED: Thayer received more than $800,000 through the U.S. Department of Defense Defense University Research Instrumentation Program. Professor Simon Shepherd and researcher Evan Thomas will use the funds to upgrade SuperDARN.

INVENTED: PhD candidates Junhu Zhou Th’21 and Ziqian Wu Th’23 and PhD graduate Congran “Billy” Jin Th’23—advised by Professor John Zhang—were finalists in the Collegiate Inventors Competition for their invention, Nanopure Aqua.

PUBLISHED: Professor Geoffroy Hautier coauthored “Small-pore Hydridic Frameworks Store Densely Packed Hydrogen,” published in Nature Chemistry.

PRESENTED: PhD students Gregory Hyde Th’24, Chase Yakaboski Th’23, and Clement Nyanhongo ’17 Th’18 Th’24 presented on “AI for Open Science: A Multi-Agent Perspective for Ethically Translating Data to Knowledge” at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems.

ATTENDED: PhD Innovation fellow Adelaide Cagle Th’27 attended the Global Collaborative Congress on Osseointegration, where her abstract, “Tissue-Engineered Combination Construct for Osseointegration Support,” was chosen for oral presentation.