Student engineers honored for exceptional design projects

Four seniors were honored for developing innovative and impactful engineering solutions as recipients of the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Engineering Projects. Frank Doyle, Dean of the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and John A. & Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor of Engineering & Applied Sciences, presented the awards during the sixth annual SEAS Design & Project Fair on May 3.

The four winners were selected by faculty members for having the best projects in Engineering Design Projects (ES 100), a yearlong capstone course for seniors in the S.B. engineering program. Each student in the course designs and completes a creative project that solves a specific, real-world problem.

“As evidenced by the projects on display, sometimes SEAS students make things that are really cool, quirky, or fun. Often, it is work that will help solve a real problem and have a significant impact on people’s lives,” Doyle said. “Today, we honor the cream of the crop of this year’s ES 100 engineering projects. Congratulations to all the award winners and honorable mention citations.”

The award winners were:

• Jessica Ewald, engineering sciences – environmental sciences, for her project “Modeling Methylmercury in Ringed Seal Pups” (advisor: Elsie Sunderland, Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering)
• Tim McNamara, electrical engineering, for his project “Developing a Low-Cost Ground Station for Low-Earth-Orbit Satellites” (advisor: Evelyn Hu, Tarr-Coyne Professor of Applied Physics and of Electrical Engineering)
• Daniel Wang, mechanical engineering, for his project “Drone-based VOC Sampling System for Atmospheric Insights in the Amazonia” (advisor: Karena McKinney, Preceptor in Engineering Sciences)
• Alex Yang, engineering sciences – biomedical engineering, for his project “Adaptable Passive Pediatric Lower Limb Prosthesis” (advisors: Maurice Smith, Gordon McKay Professor of Bioengineering, Hugh Herr, Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT, and Tyler Clites Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Ph.D. candidate)

Each finalist received a certificate and $500.

In addition, the following students received honorable mention awards during the Design & Project Fair:

• Samuel Becker, mechanical engineering
• Serena Blacklow, engineering sciences – biomedical engineering
• Ivan Cisneros, electrical engineering
• Ryan Halvorson, engineering sciences – biomedical engineering
• Brian Krentz, electrical engineering
• Alexander Raun, electrical engineering