Russ College names 2022 and 2023 faculty and staff awardees

The Russ College of Engineering and Technology hosted its annual Spring Awards Celebration honoring faculty and staff members within the college on Friday, April 14, 2023. 

With the college’s Board of Visitors, Student Engineering Ambassadors and faculty and staff in attendance, interim dean Maj Mirmirani named the recipients of the college’s various excellence awards. 

The winners for the outstanding administrative, technical and classified employee awards were:

• Outstanding Technical Employee: Shy Switzer, Laboratory Coordinator, Instructor and Safety Coordinator for Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Outstanding Administrative Employee: Sherry Vogt, Research Grants Development Coordinator
• Outstanding Classified Employee: Nicole Knapp, Administrative Coordinator

Mirmirani continued with naming the White Research and Teaching Awards, which was generously established by Marvin and Ann White in 1998. For the White Awards, each department selects outstanding faculty for excellence in teaching and research. The individual departments develop their own selection criteria. 

The winners of the 2022 White Research Awards were:

• Sumit Sharma, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
• Bhaven Naik, Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Jundong Liu, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
• Yuqiu You, Engineering Technology and Management
• Felipe Aros-Vera, Industrial and Systems Engineering
• Brian Wisner, Mechanical Engineering

The winners of the 2023 White Research Awards were:

• Dami Daramola, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
• Danny Che, Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Chad Mourning, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
• Jesús Pagán, Engineering Technology and Management
• Felipe Aros-Vera, Industrial and Systems Engineering
• Andrew Weems, Mechanical Engineering

The winners of the 2022 White Teaching Awards were:

• Deak Arch, Aviation
• Darin Ridgway, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
• Danny Che, Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Dan Allwine, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
• Zaki Kuruppalil, Engineering Technology and Management
• Dale Masel, Industrial and Systems Engineering
• John Cotton, Mechanical Engineering

The winners of the 2023 White Teaching Awards were:

• Zach Wood, Aviation
• Monica Burdick, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
• Bhaven Naik, Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Nasseef Abukamail, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
• Paul Deering, Engineering Technology and Management
• Ron Lewis, Industrial and Systems Engineering
• Cody Petitt, Mechanical Engineering

In 1981, Fritz Russ, BSEE’42, HON’75, and his wife, Dolores, generously established an endowment that has since then supported two awards, for research and teaching, to be presented annually by the Russ College of Engineering and Technology. Since that time, a new Group II faculty award has been created as well.
 

The winners of the Russ Outstanding Research Paper Award were:

• Sumit Sharma, 2022 recipient, for his paper “Machine Learning Modeling of Time-Dependent Corrosion Rates of Carbon Steel in Presence of Corrosion Inhibitors”
• Harsha Chenji, 2023 recipient, for his paper “Agile Neighbor Discovery in MEMS-based FSO Networks: A Computer Vision Approach”

The winners of the Russ Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award were:

• Curtis Cohenour, 2022 Group I recipient, Engineering Technology and Management
• Blake Regan, 2022 Group II recipient, Engineering Technology and Management
• Zaki Kuruppalil, 2023 Group I recipient, Engineering Technology and Management
• Cody Petitt, 2023 Group II recipient, Mechanical Engineering

The evening concluded with dessert, refreshments and music from the Ted Harris Trio.