5/13/2008 Bridget Maiellaro, ECE Illinois
The Student Alumni Ambassadors and the University of Illinois Alumni Association recently named their selections for the 2008 Senior 100 Honorary; ECE students Lawrence Han, Catherine Wah, and Elaine Wah were among the many honored.
Written by Bridget Maiellaro, ECE Illinois
The Student Alumni Ambassadors and the University of Illinois Alumni Association recently named their selections for the 2008 Senior 100 Honorary. ECE students Lawrence Han, Catherine Wah, and Elaine Wah were among the many honored for their academic standing as well as their involvement and leadership on campus and within the Champaign-Urbana community.
Lawrence Han got involved by joining Eta Kappa Nu (HKN) as a committee member. As HKN student services chair, he coordinated ECE 110, 210, and 290 tutoring and review sessions. During his junior year, Han became head of HKN’s Evening with Industry, recruiting companies to visit and build relationships with ECE students.
This past school year, Han took an active role in the Illinois Consulting Club. As a way to prepare students interested in consulting for their future job search, he compiled case interviews and organized practice sessions for students to come in for an hour each Sunday. This past semester, Han compiled a case book full of practice cases to use to their advantage.
Han was also involved with the Entrepreneurs Without Borders, which was established to promote student entrepreneurs in small countries through small loans as a way to build up their county’s economy. Most recently, the organization built a relationship with Croatian students, enabling more than 20 Illinois students to visit Croatia early last semester. In addition, 17 Croatian students visited campus last month.
Han plans to work as a systems and integration technology consultant at Accenture in Chicago. Within five years, he would like to attend graduate school and earn his master’s degree in business administration.
Over the past four years, Catherine Wah has held many positions on campus and participated in a variety of extracurricular activities. She has served as the fundraising chair, external relations chair, and president of HKN, as well as president of Women in Electrical and Computer Engineering (WECE). Wah also worked to provide ECE students with a variety of activities through her roles as senior EE representative and chair of the ECE Student Advisory Committee (ECESAC).
Aside from her club involvement, Wah was a member of the Campus Honors Program and a lab teaching assistant for ECE 210: Analog Signal Processing for two semesters. She also taught an introductory engineering course for incoming freshman as an Engineering Learning Assistant last fall. In her free time, Wah volunteered for Champaign-Urbana Special Recreation, organizing sports and leisure activities for community residents with disabilities.
Most recently, Wah received the Marcia Peterman Award. Her name will be engraved on a plaque that will be hung in Everitt Lab. The award was created to honor Marcia Peterman, an ECE staff member from 1930 to 1983, known for her contributions to campus and community affairs.
Wah will be taking language and cultural classes this summer in Beijing, China. She will graduate in August and attend the University of California, San Diego, in the fall, studying computer science. After earning a PhD in computer science, Wah hopes to become a professor.
Like her sister Catherine, Elaine Wah has demonstrated her leadership abilities through a variety of activities since she arrived at the University. During her sophomore year she was the vice president of WECE. She was the president of the Biomedical Engineering Society her junior year, coordinating the group’s shift from the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, an affiliate society of the IEEE. Elaine also served as the vice president of HKN during the fall 2007 semester. This past semester, she started her own committee within HKN, the Vision Committee, which was focused on the pursuit of innovation and improvement in services HKN offers to the ECE community. She was also a Graf Intern at the Illinois Leadership Center, working to coordinate leadership programs offered to all students.
In addition to her leadership roles, Elaine had been involved with undergraduate research since her freshman year. For the past two years, she worked under ECE Professor Zhi-Pei Liang at the Beckman Institute. A Chancellor’s Scholar in the Campus Honors Program, Elaine also served as an Engineering Learning Assistant last fall.
Elaine recently received the A.R. "Buck" Knight Award. Hr name will be engraved on a plaque that is displayed in Everitt Lab. Elaine also received the HKN Achievement Award in Leadership and was a member of the 2007 Homecoming Court.
Elaine will be attending the University of California, Los Angeles, in the fall. She will be in the PhD program for computer science and plans to focus on computer graphics and financial engineering.
While all 100 senior honorees were recognized for their achievements at the Senior 100 Honorary Banquet, which was held at the Alice Campbell Alumni Center on Sunday, April 13, the ECE Department also recognized Han and the Wah sisters, at the annual ECE awards and Recognition Banquet Thursday, April 24.