Contact: Michael Padilla, 277-1816
May 14, 2003 UNM Mechanical Engineering Students Win Awards at National and International Level University of New Mexico Mechanical Engineering (ME) undergraduate and graduate students recently participated in various conferences and competitions and won national and international awards. Below are some highlights of some of these participations: Several ME students participated in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Region IV Student Conference, held in Houston, Texas, in April. The following are the results: • James MacCornack received $75 in the freshman/sophomore history category for placing second among five competing papers for his paper, “Apollo One: A Case Study in Decision Making During Engineering Design.” • Matthew Mulholland won $300 in the graduate technical paper category for placing second among 11 competing papers for the paper, “The Study of Void Growth and Interaction in a Superplastic Material.” Mulholland was advised on his work by Professors Tariq Khraishi and Yu-Lin Shen of the ME Department. Mulholland’s research work has been partially supported by the UNM NASA PURSUE program and by Sandia National Laboratories. • Chris Platero and Peihua Jing also presented papers in the graduate division. The Advisor for the UNM AIAA Chapter is Professor Randy Truman of the ME Department. Five ME students attended the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Regional XII Student Conference held in Las Cruces in April. • The ASME student section placed third ($100 award) in the Ingersoll-Rand competition (an overall measure of student section activity), behind winners from Colorado State and Utah State. • Students Jonathan Roensch and Miguel Casias participated in the Old Guard oral presentation and poster competition, respectively. All students participated in the impromptu design contest. The Advisor for the UNM ASME student section is Professor Greg Starr of the ME Department. Graduate student Peihua Jing was selected as a technical paper winner in the student paper competition of the 2003 ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping (PVP) conference to be held on Tuesday, July 22, in Cleveland, Ohio. Only 10 papers were selected from an international competition —only two papers from U.S. universities, including UNM. Jing’s paper is “Analytical Solutions Of Crack Tip Plasticity Zone Shape For A Semi-Infinite Crack.” Professors Larissa Gorbatikh and Khraishi of the ME department advised Jing and co-authored the paper. Professor Khraishi is Jing’s advisor. Jing also received the prestigious Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellowship for 2001-2002. She is one of few UNM students ever to receive this fellowship. She was the only MS student out of 35 recipients. All other recipients were Ph.D. students. Khraishi is the graduate/thesis advisor for Peihua’s fellowship. Khraishi supported her work on her winning paper for the 2003 ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping (PVP) conference. ###

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