Thirteen S&T graduate students presented their research – including investigations of alloys, examination of lasers, and analysis of heuristic optimization – to three faculty member judges during virtual sessions this spring.

The awardees are:

• Cody Lough, a Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering, received first place for his research project titled “In-Situ Radiometric Inspection of Laser Powder Bed Fusion.”
• Samuel Vanfossan, a Ph.D. student in systems engineering, received second place for his research titled “Disaster Recovery Strategy Generation via Multi-Objective Heuristic Optimization.”
• Matthew Luebbe, a graduate student in materials science and engineering, received third place for his research titled “Precipitate Structure Evolution in a High-Entropy Alloy.”

The faculty judges were:

• Dr. Melanie Mormile, professor of biological sciences and geological sciences and engineering
• Dr. Costas Tsatsoulis, vice chancellor of research and graduate studies
• Dr. Leslie Gertsch, associate professor of geological sciences and engineering and adjunct assistant professor in mining engineering.