Students

Colleen E. Bronner, an associate professor of teaching and vice-chair of undergraduate studies in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is a champion of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at UC Davis.

Her research focus is primarily in two areas: inclusive teaching pedagogy, which explores ways to teach that do not privilege or disadvantage people based on their backgrounds and experiences, and diversity, equity, inclusion and justice in engineering.

Civil and environmental engineering (CEE) students Alexandra Rivas, Ryan Callahan, Jake Morisato and Monet Kunz were interns on the Green Buildings team that helped the Peter J. Shields Library receive Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification. LEED is a green building certification program used worldwide.

A new student organization at UC Davis is working to give everyone an equal opportunity to gain hands-on experience in an engineering machine shop. The Women Machinists’ Club at UC Davis (WMC) is a place for women and gender minorities to learn technical skills and develop the support network they need to succeed in a traditionally male-dominated shop environment.

The UC Davis College of Engineering is pleased to recognize one teaching assistant (TA) from each of our eight departments with the Best TA awards. These awards recognize graduate students who show a strong commitment to the mission and vision of the college and consistently perform above and beyond to train and create the next generation of engineers and leaders. These award recipients were nominated and selected by their respective departments.

Suchita Mukherjee is the first recipient of the annual Master’s Thesis Excellence Award in the College of Engineering. She is graduating from UC Davis this spring with a master’s degree in computer science and will be joining Zillow Group as a software developer.

She was selected for this award based on her research, “Fixing Dependency Errors for Python Build Reproducibility,” under the mentorship of computer science Professor Cindy Rubio-González.

Growing up, Kathryn Tarver would have never believed she would one day be an engineer. Now, she is graduating with a B.S. in biological systems engineering, having become a dedicated machinist and problem-solver. At UC Davis, she fostered her love of machines in the biological and agricultural engineering (BAE) shop and has worked to create a better world both in the community and on campus by founding the Women Machinists’ Club at UC Davis.

The UC Davis College of Engineering congratulates the students who have received Outstanding Senior Awards, Department Citations and Scholar Awards. These students demonstrate the best in leadership, academic achievement and service both in and out of the classroom.
 

Dr. Sima Asadi is this year’s recipient of the Zuhair A. Munir Award for the best doctoral dissertation in the College of Engineering. She received her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from UC Davis in 2020 and is now a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Asadi’s dissertation, “Airborne Infectious Disease Transmission via Expiratory Aerosol Particles and Aerosolized Fomite,” focuses on airborne infectious disease transmission.

By Rachel Steere and Noah Pflueger-Peters

The Engineering Design Showcase is the culminating experience for graduating seniors. This event brings together project teams from all eight departments for an opportunity to share their design projects with their peers, professors and the public. This year, the College of Engineering will host the showcase virtually on the college’s website on June 3, 2021. About 130 design teams and engineering clubs have signed up to share their efforts with industry partners, alumni and the campus community.

Civil and environmental engineering student Chidubem Nnaji has been named a 2021 Donald A. Strauss Foundation Scholar for his project titled “Using Solar Power to Empower.” The annual scholarship was established as a memorial to the late Don Strauss—a successful business executive who had a lifelong interest in education and public service—and awards $15,000 to up to fifteen college sophomores or juniors from pre-selected institutions in California.