Six Samueli School Students Awarded Fellowships
The Henry Samueli School of Engineering is pleased to recognize six graduate students who have been awarded fellowships in recognition of their outstanding research and academic accomplishments.
Brython Davis Fellowship - To be eligible for this Fellowship, the student’s parents must currently be or have been a regular member of either the United States Navy or Marine Corps.
Sarah Quiggle is a first-year graduate student studying transportation systems engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Quiggle is advised by Professor Wilfred Recker, Ph.D., and researches public transit and non-motorized transit at Institute of Transportation Studies. Quiggle earned her bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from UC Davis in 2010. Quiggle’s father, Charles Allen, is a retired member of the U.S. Navy.
La Verne Noyes Fellowship – To be eligible for this Fellowship, the student must be a blood descendant of a United States Army or Navy World War I veteran, who served for at least four months prior to November 11, 1918.
Sarah Adams received her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2006, where she focused on polymer science studies, and earned her master’s degree from UC Irvine in 2008. In her Ph.D. dissertation research within UC Irvine’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, she has worked in the laboratory of Assistant Professor Regina Ragan, Ph.D., to integrate diblock copolymer thin film self-assembly and organic surface chemistry with the patterning of nanoparticle arrays for use in two-dimensional planar plasmonics. Potential applications for her array assembly method include the development of field-enhanced chemical and biomolecular detection devices for highly sensitive diagnostic analysis, as well as enhancement of photovoltaic device efficiency.
Miguel Velez Fellowship – To be eligible for this Fellowship, a student must be a citizen and resident from a Latin America country, with preference to students from Colombia.
Luis Alonzo, a second-year Ph.D. student from Venezuela, was awarded a Miguel Velez Fellowship worth $10,000. Alonzo is working in the Cardiopulmonary Transport and Tissue Remodeling laboratory under Professor Steven C. George, M.D., Ph.D., in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, where he is working on creating a 3-D dynamic model of the tumor microenvironment to characterize the role of macrophages on tumor progression and metastasis.
Jaime Duarte, a second-year graduate student from Colombia, received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Central Florida (UCF) in 2009. As an undergraduate, Duarte worked on the development of a computational model for the gas-exchange process of the lung at UCF. He studied muscle architecture and joint mechanics of the hand at UC San Diego, and developed a computational model for the heat transfer of power transmission lines while studying abroad at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. He is interested in understanding how the human body learns to move and interact with its environment. In particular, he is interested in understanding how humans learn to perform motions in sport-related activities. Duarte is currently working under the direction of Professor David Reinkensmeyer, Ph.D., in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, studying error-driven strategies to enhance motor learning.
Public Impact Fellowship– The Public Impact Fellowship supports highly meritorious scholars whose research demonstrates significant public impact.
Behrouz Shafei, a Ph.D. candidate under the supervision of Distinguished Professor Masanobu Shinozuka, Ph.D., in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, received the 2010-11 Public Impact Distinguished Fellowship. Shafei received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Tehran in Iran in 2004, and went to earn his master’s degree in structural engineering in 2006 at the University of Tehran. Behrouz was one of only four UC Irvine graduate students to receive this prestigious $10,000 fellowship, which recognizes his outstanding academic achievements and efforts to improve the risk and vulnerability assessment of the nation's critical lifeline systems. During the course of his graduate studies, Shafei has also received the Henry Samueli Fellowship. He has presented his research at several conferences and published a number of peer-reviewed papers in prestigious journals. One of his recent papers has been awarded the 2011 James D. Cooper Best Paper Award for the contribution to the reliability analysis of infrastructure components under multiple hazards.
Phillip Duncan, a third-year Ph.D. student studying under Assistant Professor Elliot Hui, Ph.D., in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, received an honorable mention Public Impact Fellowship from the UC Irvine Graduate Division. Duncan’s research centers on the development of a microfluidic oscillator. In the future, he hopes to develop a new manufacturing process utilizing micromachining instead of lithography to create more complicated microfluidic circuits. The platform he is developing would allow for point-of-care diagnostic devices that are low-cost, portable and simple to use.
