Four students receive honors at research symposium

Four students—Katie Hurley, Mayank Puri, Amanda Stemig, and Ellis Warner—received "Beaker and Bunsen" travel awards for having the top presentations at this year's 12th Annual Graduate Student Research Symposium.

Thirty-eight third-year graduate students participated in this year's symposium, Tuesday, June 4. This year's participants include Antonio Campos, Jesse L. Carey III, Victoria Chemistruck, Angel D. Cortés-Morales, Adam Dittmer, Reed J. Eisenhart, Solaire Finkenstaedt-Quinn, Matthew L. Geiger, Joshua P. Halverson, Michelle M. Henderson, Amy L. Hogerton, Christopher J. Huber, William C. Isley III, Jonggul J Kim, Scott T. Kleespies, Rebecca K. Lindsey, Mohammad Mohsen Mahmoodi, Deirdre Manion-Fischer, John W. McAllister, Andrew R. Michel, Nicholas G. Moon, Maral P.S. Mousavi, Eric M. Nordland, Zhongda Pan, Pavel L. Rehak, Zhen Ren, Christopher J. Roberts, Jennifer A. Soltis, Dustin Sprouse, Davood Taherinia, Kenneth J. Tritch, Jeffrey S. Vervacke, Benjamin Wilson, and Yaoying Wu.

This year's distinguished judges included Krista A. Fjare, Ph.D., director, Biofuels Hydrolysis, Phillips 66 Research and Development Department; Andrew Magee, Ph.D., vice president, Chemistry, Biothera; Joseph Schroeder, Ph.D., lead chemist, NatureWorks LLC; and Karen Schultz, Ph.D., materials engineer, Boeing Research & Technology. Faculty judges were professors Michel Bowser, Steven Kass, Thomas Hoye, Sandy Lipsky, Doreen Leopold, Timothy Lodge, Lawrence Que Jr., and Donald Truhlar.

The 12th Annual Graduate Student Research Symposium Committee members were Professors Christopher Douglas and Laura Gagliardi, Communications Coordinator Eileen Harvala, and Assistant to the Chair Christine Lundby. Technology support was provided by Webmaster Eric Schulz and Information Technology Professional Mike Casey.

Pictured: Judges for and winners of the 2013 Graduate Student Research Symposium are, from left, distinguished judge Karen Schultz, faculty judge Michael Bowser, distinguished judge Krista Fajare, faculty judge Doreen Leopold, winner Amanda Stemig, faculty judge Lawrence Que, winner Ellis Warner, distinguished judge Joseph Schroeder, winner Mayank Puri, faculty judge Thomas Hoye, winner Katie Hurley, faculty judge Donald Truhlar, and distinguished judge Andrew Magee.