Awards and Honors

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Rohit K. Belapurkar, a doctoral student and graduate research associate in aerospace engineering, was a Grand Prize Winner in the New Horizons Challenge, a contest organized by American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Required to design a demonstration competition of a groundbreaking innovation, Belapurkar proposed an “Orbital DebRe Challenge” in which teams would design, build and demonstrate a removal and disposal system for space debris larger than 10 cm orbiting within an altitude band of 800-1,000 km. AIAA will present Belapurkar’s proposal to the appropriate government agency, or agencies, for consideration of an actual competition.

Dominic Labanowski, a junior in electrical and computer engineering, was named a 2011 Barry M. Goldwater Scholar, the most prestigious national award for undergraduate researchers in science, math and engineering. Labanowski, who received a scholarship to cover one year of his college costs, plans to pursue a career conducting research in semiconductor devices as a university faculty member.


Eight students and one alumnus from the College of Engineering received 2011 National Science Foundation fellowships to support their graduate research. Undergraduates honored, listed with the university where they plan to pursue their graduate degrees, are Katherine Marie Bovee, mechanical engineering, Ohio State; Tyler Aaron Merz, engineering physics, Ohio State; Jacqueline Ohmura, materials science and engineering, Northwestern University; and Kevin Kaichuang Yang, chemical and biomolecular engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate students currently attending Ohio State who received the fellowships are Santino Carnevale, materials science and engineering; Elif Eda Miskioglu, chemical engineering; and Vienny Nguyen, mechanical engineering, and Patrick Michael Wensing, electrical engineering, who obtained their undergraduate degrees at Ohio State in 2010 and 2009, respectively. Alumnus Michael Roe, who in 2010 earned Ohio State bachelor’s degrees in electrical and computer engineering and physics, is using his graduate fellowship for studies at the University of California-Berkeley.

Samantha Yoder, a doctoral student and bachelor’s and master’s degree alumna in electrical and computer engineering, received the prestigious U.S. Department of Defense SMART (Science, Mathematics And Research for Transformation) Fellowship, which aims to increase the number of civilian scientists and engineers working at defense department laboratories.

Category: Students