College Applauds Esteemed Alumni

Like many students, when Jackie Marshall DiMarco started classes as an undergraduate in Ohio State’s College of Engineering, she didn’t really have a good concept of what she would do with the mechanical engineering (ME) degree she was earning.

"My adviser told me about the student project teams at CAR [the Center for Automotive Research] and I got involved with the Formula Lightning team," DiMarco says. "In that process, I found what I was really passionate about, and that was the automotive industry."

DiMarco, Ford Motor Company’s chief engineer of the F-150, Expedition and Navigator, received the Texnikoi Outstanding Achievement Award, one of the College’s premier awards, at the 2011 Excellence in Engineering & Architecture Alumni Awards ceremony.

A two-time Ohio State alumna, DiMarco earned a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering in 1995 and a master of science degree in the same discipline in 1996.

Monte Ahuja, ’70 ME, is the 2011 recipient of the Benjamin G. Lamme Meritorious Achievement Medal, the College’s highest honor. Ahuja is chairman and CEO of MURA Holdings LLC, chairman of the board of directors for University Hospital System of Cleveland, and a board member for BioEnterprise Corp.

Also honored was Robert J. Shaw, ’70 BS, MS and ’79 PhD, aeronautical and astronautical engineering, of Cleveland, who received the Meritorious Service Citation for his support of the college as chair of the aerospace engineering department’s advisory board. He has also participated in task forces charged with examining and enhancing the role of aerospace engineering and education at Ohio State. Shaw is the chief of the Business Development and Partnership Office at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Glenn Research Center.

In presenting the awards Dean David B. Williams told the honorees, "You are all very important to our future as we strive to be the premier engineering college in the nation and continue to educate ‘true winners’ in our field."

Recipients of this year’s Distinguished Alumni Awards are:

• Gregory B. Comfort, ’78 BS civil engineering, Columbus, president of EMH&T

• Brian P. Kinzelman, ’77 BS landscape architecture, Columbus, co-founding principal of Kinzelman Kline Grossman, now MSI+KKG

• Bob Loversidge, ’74 BS ’76 MA architecture, Columbus, president and CEO of Schooley Caldwell Associates

• Steve May, ’92 MS and ’98 PhD computer & information science, San Anselmo, Calif., chief technology officer at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif.

• Jeff Rittichier, ’82 BS ME, La Canada Flintridge, Calif., president and CEO of NanoStatics Corp.

• Surendra Saboo, ’84 MS, ’86 Ph.D. industrial & systems engineering, Winnetka, Ill., president and CEO of Neutral Tandem

• Christina Sistrunk, ’82 BS chemical engineering, Harvey, La., vice president of production assets, deepwater, Gulf of Mexico, for Shell Oil Co.

• Richard Treharne, ’72 BS metallurgical engineering, Memphis, Tenn. vice president, clinical research and regulatory/quality affairs for Active Implants Corp.

• Lucia Tsaoussi, ’84 MS, ’89 PhD geodetic science, Rockville, Md., deputy associate director for earth science research at NASA headquarters

• Marvin White, ’69 PhD electrical engineering, Powell, Ohio, a professor in Ohio State’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

• Duran N. Yetkinler, ’91 MS, ’94 PhD biomedical engineering, San Jose, Calif., president of Skeletal Kinetics LLC

Read more about the awardees at engineering.osu.edu/news/2011/09/college-applauds-esteemed-alumni.