Student Awards Banquet 2023

Welcome to the 2023 Student Awards & Recognition Banquet for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Provided below is an outline of the evening's program, along with a complete list of the scholarships, undergraduate awards, graduate fellowships, and graduate awards recognized at this event.

Thank you to the donors and friends who joined us at the banquet; without your support and generosity, this would not be possible. Finally, congratulations to the students being honored for their hard work and inspiring accomplishments.

Scholarship Recipients

For more information on each scholarship, including descriptions and a list of past recipients, please visit ece.illinois.edu/academics/ugrad/scholarships-and-awards.

3M-ECE Scholarship

• Sneh Chandak
• Ananya Kommalapati

A.R. "Buck" Knight Scholarship

• Lyuxing He
• Jingyi Xiang

Ackmann Family Scholarship

• Ziheng Chen
• Zikui Wang
• Phuri Yingyord

Alwan Engineering Scholarship

• Gabriela Hinostroza Perez
• Allison Kao
• David Lacayo

Barbara H. and Brian L. Renwick Electrical Engineering Scholarship

• Nathan Marchosky
• Michael Stoens

Bradley A. Simmons Memorial Scholarship

• Charles Plonski
• Gaohan Ye

Bradley J. Griffis Endowed Scholarship

• Chayanid Kaewla
• Karthik Prasad

Brian and Sophie Leung Scholarship

• Noah Conner
• Yiming Zhao
• Jiayu Zhu

Bruce C. Mather Memorial ECE Scholarship

• Naixiang Gao
• Siddarth Iyer

Daniel W. and Carol A. Dobberpuhl Electrical & Computer Engineering Scholarship

• Henry Crawford-Eng
• Kai Chieh Liang
• Ji Shi
• Jialiang Xu

Donald R. and Arline D. Jeschke Scholarship

• Alyssa Yakey

Dr. Kenneth P. and Claire V. Gibbs Scholarship

• Jason Kim
• Dongming Liu

Dr. Milton Feng Scholarship in ECE

• Kewei Song

ECE Alumni Scholarship

• Xiaofei He
• Benjamin Kalnbach
• Landon Klecka
• Ethan Lin
• Adia Radecka Jakubczak
• Sean Ramirez
• Bryan Thai
• Ryan Thammakhoune

ECE Visionary Scholarships

• Jaelynn-Darshawn Abdullah
• Melvin Alpizar
• Dominic Andrejek
• Emily Chen
• Lewis Conn
• Alexandra Dicheva
• Edward Dzieza
• Chloe Estepp
• Uriel Facio
• Matilde Figueroa-Carrillo
• Gustavo Fonseca
• Emily Franco
• Cristian Gamez
• Xinyi Gong
• Kaitlin Gowens
• Olivia Guido
• Diego Herrera
• Ryan Horstman
• Stephanie Leigh
• Scott Lopez
• Aleena Majeed
• Eric Mattner
• Naomi Popescu
• Hugo Ribeiro
• Jasmine Richmond
• Daniel Rodriguez
• Ariana Rosales
• Anna Sako
• Jeanjuella Tipan
• Evelyn Urquiza
• Gabriel Valles
• Alfredo Velasquez
• Nandika Vuyyuri
• Mingxiao Wang
• Sophia Wilhelm
• Claire Zhu
• Robert Zhu

Eleftherios Polychronopoulos Scholarship

• Emily Chen
• Cain Gonzalez

Emma L. Marshall Scholarship

• Geitanksha Tandon

Ernest A. Tolli Memorial Scholarship

• Zongrui Cai
• Adarsh Payyavula

Floyd E. Lundgren Scholarship

• Jai Anchalia

Frank C. Mock Scholarship

• Jack Burns
• Charlotte Fondren
• Austin Glass
• Isabella Heinrichs
• Aidan Rodgers
• Alexander Romo
• Lily Sheng
• Willard Sullivan

Frank D. and Irene M. Low Scholarship

• Victoria Anne Lee
• Morgan Miller
• Eric Moreno

Frederick D. Secor Memorial Scholarship

• Jada-Marie Griggs

George A. and Ina M. Zehr Scholarship

• Allen Peng

George and Cynthia Anner Scholarship

• Marissa Lanz

Harriet and Robert Perry Scholarship

• Xinlong Dai
• Christopher Zhang

Henneman Scholarship in Electrical and Computer Engineering

• Yvonne Smith

Henry O. Koehler Merit Scholarship

• Jeffrey Chang
• Mohammad El-Jawhari
• Cameron Fuller
• Oliver Johnson
• Alex Kim
• Sahan Kumarasinghe
• Jiwon Lee
• Martin Michalski
• John Pohovey
• Jaewoong Song
• Sara Spahi
• Saud Tahir
• John Truong

Herbert Y. and Stella S. Chang Scholarship

• Steffi Chen
• Jasmine Richmond
• Hongkun Zeng

Indira Gunda Saladi Engineering Research Prize

• Shuen Wu

Ingram Family Scholarship

• Noah Conner
• Arkaprabha Kolay
• Quincy Lovitt-Talivaa
• Jason Wright

Jeewan Singh and Simranjeet Kaur Ghuman Scholarship

• Yu Li
• Lilian Wang

John and Sheila Woythal Scholarship

• Sevan Brodjian
• Jason Flanagan
• Michael Grawe
• Matthew Jin
• Joshua Litao
• Daniel Piper
• Max Shepherd
• Shuen Wu
• Alex Yuan
• Stephen Zhu

Joseph W. Lyding Endowed Scholarship

• Jevin Liu
• Adam Snedden

Jules D. Falzer Memorial Scholarship

• John Burns
• Alex Hu
• Evan Schmitz
• Patrick Sear
• Stefan Sokolowski
• Allen Steinberg
• Ethan White

Kaskowitz Family Scholarship

• Ruifan Ji

Kwon Family Scholarship Fund

• Calvin Lee

Lauren Kelley Memorial Scholarship

• Yogavarshini Velavan
• Xinyu Wu

M. A. Pai Scholarship

• Thanatheepan Balachandran

Mang Chi Chan Memorial Scholarship

• Victor Chan Lu
• David Song

O. Thomas and Martha S. Purl Scholarship

• Yu-Chen Chang
• Arpandeep Khatua

Oakley Scholarship in Electrical and Computer Engineering

• Anusha Adira
• Emily Chen
• Jessica Gruber
• Allison Kao
• Elinor Simmons
• Jeanjuella Tipan

Omron Electrical Engineering Scholarship

• Javier Cardenas-Magana
• Mohammed-Adam Naboulsi
• Joshua Yu

Peter W. Sauer Scholarship

• Alyssa Bradshaw
• Alexander Chmiel
• Annabelle Epplin
• Ryan Josephson
• Ren Yi Ooi
• Thomas Wolf

Professor G.H. Fett Memorial Scholarship

• Anna Sako
• Adam Snedden
• Alec Thompson

Professor N. Narayana Rao Scholarship Award

• Hongyu Chen
• Jiaru Zou

Robert C. MacClinchie Scholarship

• Chloe Armstrong

Robert M. Janowiak Scholarship

• Zhuxuan Liu
• Haoyuan You

Russell E. Berthold Scholarship

• Megan Chung
• Jace Haas

Sparking Curiosity Scholarship

• Tejas Satpalkar

TIA - Robert William Pullen Foundation Scholarship

• Brian Yang

Varshney Family Scholarship

• Blerim Abdullai
• Hongbo Zheng

Vincent A. and Janet O'Brien Scholarships

• Rebecca Muise
• Manit Niwas

William C. Kerchner Scholarship

• Shree Samavedhi

William J. Mayer Engineering Scholarship

• Alyssa Bradshaw
• Hyrum Dickinson
• Annabelle Epplin
• Gage Gulley
• Bryson Maedge

Undergraduate Award Winners

For more information on each award, including descriptions and a list of past recipients, please visit ece.illinois.edu/academics/ugrad/scholarships-and-awards.

A.R. "Buck" Knight Award

• Hanwen Liu

Daniel W. and Carol A. Dobberpuhl Student Award

• Yu-Chen Chang
• Hongyu Chen
• Jiaru Zou

Donald L. Bitzer and H. Gene Slottow Creativity Award

• Pauline Lu
• Asher Mai

Edward and Margaret Ernst Award

• Luke Jacobs
• Julie Lee

Edward C. Jordan Award

• Chloe Armstrong
• Ryan Josephson
• Zak Kaminski
• Shuen Wu
• Alex Zhang

Ellery B. Paine Outstanding Junior Award

• Charles Plonski
• Ethan White
• Jingyi Xiang

John Bardeen Undergraduate Award

• Henry Crawford-Eng

Justin David Cunningham Memorial Award

• Jacob Czyz

M. Stanley Helm Award

• Jai Anchalia
• Cameron Little

Marcia Peterman Memorial Award

• Michael Grawe
• Ji Shi
• Kewei Song
• Shuen Wu
• Alex Zhang

Michael E. Napier Memorial Award

• William Shen

Oakley Award in Electrical and Computer Engineering

• Gaohan Ye

Paul R. Egbert Memorial Award

• Annabelle Epplin

Robert H. Jung and Lisa J. Chan Award in Electrical Engineering

• Jevin Liu

Siddharth "Sid" Muthal ECE Undergraduate Student Memorial Entrepreneur of the Year Award

• Daniel Abdoue
• Mukhil Umashankar

Timothy N. Trick Leadership Award

• Hyunsoo Kim
• Peizhe Liu
• Qiran Pang

Student Speaker: Kavita Desai

Kavita is a PhD student researching in the Laboratory for Optical Physics and Engineering directed by Prof. Gary Eden. She primarily works in laser spectroscopy, where she uses lasers to study and create new high-power lasers for the defense community. Kavita received her BS in Engineering Physics (She minored in ECE) and an MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering. She will defend her thesis on K-Xe (potassium xenon) lasers and amplifiers early this summer and is looking for post-doctoral positions to continue laser research. Kavita will also be honored tonight as a recipient of the Yuen T. Lo Outstanding Research Award.

Graduate Fellowship Recipients

For more information on each fellowship, including descriptions and a list of past recipients, please visit ece.illinois.edu/academics/grad/fellowships.

A.R. Buck Knight Fellowship

• Zhonghao Wang
• Hanchen Ye
• Shensheng Zhao

Dan Vivoli Endowed Fellowship

• Renan Rojas Gomez

Dilip and Sandhya Sarwate Graduate Fellowship

• Argyrios Gerogiannis
• Chun Ying Hou
• Yu-Han Huang

Dr. Ok Kyun Kim Fellowship

• Sourya Basu
• Amr Ghoname

E. A. Reid Fellowship

• Steffen Link
• Yi Zhou

ECE Distinguished Research Fellowship

• Arjit Bali
• Sourya Basu
• John Bullock
• Jaehoon Choi
• Rebecca Golm
• Zhuoran Han
• Judith Hutson
• Milind Kumar
• Adarsh Muthuveeru Subramaniam
• Erin Raftery

Harriett and Robert Perry Fellowship

• Anjana Samarakoon
• Yixuan Wang

Hong, McCully, and Allen Fellowship

• Hanwei Wang

James M. Henderson Fellowship

• Chun Ying Hou
• Yu-Han Huang
• Andre Schreiber
• MIchael Stoens

Joan & Lalit Bahl Fellowship

• Taha Ameen Ur Rahman
• Yashaswini Murthy
• Aditya Ravi
• Swetapadma Sahoo
• Sourya Sengupta
• Viraj Shah
• Raj Kiriti Velicheti

John Bardeen Fellowship in ECE

• Joshua Akin
• Xizheng Fang

Linda Su-Nan Chang Sah Doctoral Fellowship

• Mingye Xiong

Rambus Computer Engineering Fellowship

• Yongzhou Chen
• Kristina Miller
• Emerson Sie

Salmon Promise of Excellence Fellowship

• Nicholas Duggar
• Rebecca Golm
• Mason Holley
• Erin Raftery

Sundaram Seshu International Student Fellowship

• Lingxiao Yang

Graduate Award Winners

For more information on each award, including descriptions and a list of past recipients, please visit ece.illinois.edu/academics/grad/awards.

Andrew T. Yang Research and Entrepreneurship Award

• Arjun Gupta
• Zhuoran Han

Elsa and Floyd Dunn Award

• Rishyashring Iyer
• Varun Kelkar
• Zhengchang Kou

Gregory Stillman Semiconductor Graduate Research Award

• Clarence Chan
• Junzhe Kang
• Raman Kumar

Harold L. Olesen Award

• Xiang Li
• Elie Libbos
• Andrew Joseph Page
• Sankalp Yamsani

John Bardeen Memorial Graduate Research Award

• Nusrat Jahan

Lieutenant General Thomas M. Rienzi Graduate Award

• William North

Nick and Katherine Holonyak, Jr. Graduate Student Award

• Mijung Kim
• Alexander Pietros
• Haonan Wu

P. D. Coleman Outstanding Research Award

• Andrew Conrad
• Mei-Yun Lin

Raj Mittra Outstanding Research Award

• Yanyu Xiong

Robert T. Chien Memorial Award in Electrical Engineering

• Liming Wang

Shun Lien Chuang Memorial Award

• Xiaodan Hu
• Weichao Mao
• Yibo Zhao

Yi-Min Wang and Pi-Yu Chung Graduate Research Award

• Nathaniel Bleier
• Kun Wu

Yuen T. Lo Outstanding Graduate Research Award

• Kavita Desai
• Yulin He

Closing Remarks: Bruce Hajek