Honors and Awards
May 2023
Professor Joe Konstan (computer science and engineering) received the Association for Computing Machinery's Outstanding Contribution to ACM Award for 25 years of dedicated service and leadership in the advancement of ACM's research, education, and practitioner communities.
Professor Boris Shklovskii (physics and astronomy) was elected as a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for his excellence in original scientific research.
Ph.D. student Akash Dhotre (mechanical engineering) won a 2023 Mestenhauser Student Award for Excellence in Campus Internationalization in recognition of his outstanding contributions to international education.
Ph.D. student Efraín Torres (biomedical engineering) was named Student Entrepreneur of the Year by the University of Minnesota's Gary S. Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship for his innovative work on MRI technology.
Professors Stefano Gonella and Bill Arnold (civil, environmental, and geo- engineering) each received a prestigious William R. Keenan, Jr. Visiting Professorship for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Ph.D. student Kristine Loh (chemical engineering and materials science) received the University of Minnesota Council of Graduate Students (COGS) Spring 2023 Outstanding Teaching Assistant (TA) Award.
April 2023
Undergraduate students Fred Tutt (chemical engineering and materials science), Ethan Ashbrook (chemistry), and Jamison Ward (earth sciences) were named a 2023 Goldwater Scholar by the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation.
Assistant Professor Michelle Calabrese (chemical engineering and materials science) is among 25 awardees named as 2023 Early Stage Investigators by the American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE).
Professor Jialiang Le (civil, environmental, and geo- engineering) was elected as a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers' Engineering Mechanics Institute.
Professor Erin Surdo (civil, environmental, and geo- engineering) received a 2023 Outstanding Teaching Award from the National Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors.
Assistant Professor Kyoko Yoshida (biomedical engineering) has been awarded a 2023 Career Development Award from the American Heart Association (AHA), an honor given to highly promising early-career healthcare and academic professionals.
Students Stuti Arora (computer science and engineering), Marisa Bazzi (chemical engineering and materials science), Spencer Bingham (chemical engineering and materials science), Sarah Dike (biomedical engineering), Raghav Garg (bioproducts and biosystems engineering), Ashlie Hamilton (chemical engineering and materials science), Huzefa Husain (biomedical engineering), Moira Miller (mechanical engineering), Raunak Pandey (industrial and systems engineering), and Amy Wesolowski (chemical engineering and materials science) were recipients of the 2023 University of Minnesota President's Student Leadership & Service Award.
March 2023
Graduate student Tianyi Li (civil, environmental, and geo- engineering) was awarded the prestigious Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program (DDETFP) Graduate Fellowship from the Federal Highway Administration for 2023.
Assistant Professor Judy Yang (civil, environmental, and geo- engineering) received a prestigious CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF), an award given to outstanding junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholar, excelling at and integrating both research and education.
Associate Professor Mingyi Hong (electrical and computer engineering) received the IEEE Signal Processing Society's (SPS) Pierre-Simon Laplace Early Career Technical Achievement Award, which honors individuals who have made significant technical contributions within the field early in their career.
Professor Nate Mara (chemical engineering and materials science) is among seven recipients honored as The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society's (TMS) 2023 Brimacombe Medalists in recognition of his sustained excellence and achievement in business, technology, education, public policy, or science in the field.
Ph.D. students Kevin Jiang (biomedical engineering), Vinit Kumar Chugh (electrical and computer engineering), Sana Khan (bioinformatics and computational biology), Dong Jun Lee (electrical and computer engineering), Sai Ranjeet Narayanan (mechanical engineering), Beza Tuga (chemistry), and Weijie Zhang (bioinformatics and computational biology) were awarded a 2023-24 University of Minnesota Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellowships, which support outstanding U of M doctoral students who are engaged in interdisciplinary research.
February 2023
Ph.D. student Jeff Bies (mechanical engineering) won a Best Paper Award at the 2022 BATH/ASME Symposium on Fluid Power and Motion Control.
Professors Donna Whitney (earth and environmental sciences) and Gerald E. Sobelman (electrical and computer engineering) have been named a 2023 recipient of the University of Minnesota's Graduate and Professional Education Award, which recognizes faculty members for their outstanding contributions to graduate and/or professional education.
Professors Frank Bates, David Blank, Marc Hillmyer, and Aaron Massari each received a Lone Star Emmy Award for their respective production roles in University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley’s "Energía Y TÚ," a Spanish adaptation of the University of Minnesota’s own Energy and U program.
Professor Joe Zasadzinski (chemical engineering and materials science) has been elected as a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the highest grade of membership in the organization.
Regents Professor Donald Truhlar (chemistry) has been awarded the Joseph O. Hirschfelder Prize in Theoretical Chemistry, an internationally-recognized award given by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Theoretical Chemistry Institute.
Assistant Professor William Leeb (mathematics) has received an NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award for research into new mathematical methods for data processing
McKnight Presidential Professor Douglas Arnold (mathematics) has been selected for the 2023 Peter Henrici Prize in recognition of his significant contributions to the field of numerical analysis.
Assistant Professor Sayan Biswas (mechanical engineering) is the recipient of the prestigious Office of Naval Research 2023 Young Investigator Award, given to the best and brightest scientists and engineers from across academia.
January 2023
Professor Emeritus David Kohlstedt (earth and environmental sciences) has been awarded the Vetlesen Prize, one of the highest honors in Earth sciences and considered to be the field’s Nobel Prize equivalent.
Assistant Professor Brittany Hartwell (biomedical engineering) is one of four researchers worldwide who has been awarded a 2022 Michelson Prize, which recognizes early-career investigators who represent “the next generation of innovators in human immunology and vaccine research.”
Professor R. Lawrence “Larry” Edwards (earth and environmental sciences) has been awarded the Franklin Institute’s 2023 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth and Environmental Sciences recognizing his achievements in the field.
Postdoctoral researcher Saikat Mukherjee (mechanical engineering) received a 2022 UMN Postdoc Award from the University of Minnesota Postdoctoral Association, recognizing his exemplary work and contributions to the University's mission.
Professor Rajesh Rajamani (mechanical engineering) is the 2022 recipient of the ASME Charles Stark Draper Innovative Practice Award, given biennially for either excellent sustained contributions or for an outstanding major, singular contribution in innovative applications or dynamic systems, measurement, or control in engineering practice.
Ph.D. candidate Renata Saha (electrical and computer engineering) was part of the three-member team that won third place in the Magnetic Sensor Challenge at the 2022 Magnetism and Magnetic Materials (MMM) conference.
Associate Professor Mingyi Hong (electrical and computer engineering) was recently honored by the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) with the Pierre-Simon Laplace Early Career Technical Achievement Award, which honors individuals who have made significant technical contributions within the field early in their career.
Professor Yousef Saad (computer science and engineering) was awarded the 2023 John von Neumann Prize, the highest honor and flagship lecture of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), in recognition of his fundamental contributions to scientific computing.
Professor Victor Barocas (biomedical engineering) has received the 2023 Robert M. Nerem Education and Mentorship Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for his outstanding achievement in education and mentoring of trainees.
Associate Professor Mohammad Maddah-Ali (electrical and computer engineering) was named a fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
Alumnus Thomas M. Coughlin (B.S. Physics '77, M.S. EE '81) was elected as the 2023 Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) President.
Professor Jiali Gao (chemistry) has been awarded the 2023 ACS Award for Computers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research, which recognizes significant individual achievement in the use of computers in the advancement of the chemical and biological sciences and recognizes.
Professor R. Lee Penn (chemistry) was awarded the University of Minnesota's 2022 Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Award, honoring their significant research, teaching, and service to advance justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion at the University.
Assistant Professors Qi Zhang (chemical engineering and materials science), Ambika Bhagi-Damodaran (chemistry), and Ognjen Ilic (mechanical engineering) are among ten recipients of the University of Minnesota's 2023-2025 McKnight Land-Grant Professorship.