Final 12 months marked the twenty fifth anniversary of the IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship. Since its inception, the distinguished US $10,000 award has been given yearly to 1 distinctive highschool scholar collaborating within the Regeneron (previously Intel) Worldwide Science and Engineering Truthful. The ISEF is the world’s largest worldwide STEM analysis competitors for highschool college students.
Finalists for the scholarship are chosen by a crew of IEEE volunteer judges. The scholarship is funded by the IEEE Basis and administered by IEEE Instructional Actions.
To commemorate the scholarship’s anniversary, I requested previous winners how the award impacted their life and profession, and what they’re doing in the present day.
Harvard educator and a movie producer
Elena Glassman acquired the scholarship in 2004 for her Mind-Laptop Interface for the Muscularly Disabled mission. She wrote code to gather EEG wavelets that predicted her personal proper or left arm motion with an accuracy price of 73 p.c.
At this time Glassman is an assistant professor of laptop science at Harvard, the place she teaches human-computer interplay. She can be a brand new mom. The scholarship supported her schooling at MIT, the place she earned a bachelor’s diploma in electrical engineering. She says the scholarship was among the many most memorable awards she acquired.
“When your mission is being evaluated by IEEE judges who perceive the work,” she says, “that’s what was so significant about receiving the award.” With encouragement from her father, a lifelong IEEE member, she submitted a paper about her mission to IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, which revealed it.
In her present work, she says, she enjoys specializing in the “human facet of programming.” She provides that her electrical engineering background is helpful in tackling all kinds of tasks.
Adam Sidmanacquired the 2005 scholarship for Digital camera Stabilization: Take Two. His mission centered across the improvement of a handheld servo-based machine. The movie and TV producer in Los Angeles says his invention is a “go-to on a regular basis expertise for filmmakers on units world wide.”
Sidman is chief government of Timur Bekmambetov’s manufacturing firm, Bazelevs, the place he has overseen quite a lot of motion pictures together with The Present Battle, Hardcore Henry,Looking, and Unfriended.
Receiving the scholarship was “an incredible honor,” he says, “validating my ardour to mix the humanities and sciences.” He graduated from Harvard with a bachelor’s diploma in mechanical engineering and visible and environmental research.
Final 12 months he collaborated with ISEF organizers to determine a brand new class of tasks, Expertise Enhances the Arts, and he continues to function a choose.
An entrepreneur and a gene researcher
Rahul Kumar Pandey, a software program engineer-turned-entrepreneur, acquired the scholarship in 2007. His startup, Taro, helps software program engineers navigate the skilled world, offering recommendation on job looking, negotiation, promotions, and management. The platform boasts greater than 100,000 customers. Pandey is a author for IEEE’s Careers publication.
The scholarship supported his diploma in laptop science at Stanford.
He credit his science-fair expertise with giving him the boldness to innovate and advance the sphere.
His successful mission, A Microwave Metamaterial Lens With Unfavorable Index of Refraction, centered on constructing a lens array to transmit microwave indicators, and it examined their habits by way of how the lens affected the propagation of electromagnetic waves.
“After I heard my title known as, I couldn’t cease smiling,” he recollects, “as a result of a company like IEEE believed in me.”
Pandey advises highschool college students that “the world is your oyster, if in case you have curiosity. You don’t have to attend till you are feeling prepared.”
Harikrishna “Hari” Rallapalli, the 2008 scholarship recipient, is a analysis fellow on the U.S. Nationwide Institute of Neurological Issues and Stroke, in Bethesda, Md.
Rallapalli says he plans to analysis strategies that allow gene expression imaging in people, a technique that enables for the visualization and quantification of the exercise of particular genes.
His successful mission, Low-Price Complete Inside Reflection Fluorescence Microscopy, centered on constructing a microscope for school rooms, each for demonstrations and student-level analysis.
The scholarship helped assist his schooling on the College of California, Davis, the place he earned a bachelor’s diploma in biomedical engineering.
“It felt superb to have my work acknowledged by anybody, not to mention a company as prestigious as IEEE,” he says. “It was an early indication that I would minimize it as a scientist.”
Software program engineer and a Forbes 30 Beneath 30 candidate
Jessica Richeri,the 2011 recipient, is a software program design engineer at Fluke in Everett, Wash. She is designing and creating a supervisory management and information acquisition (SCADA) system for one of many firm’s factories. The system collects information from tools and creates analytics dashboards and experiences.
Richeri’s successful entry, Autonomous Robotic Car: Saving Lives, Stopping Accidents, One at a Time, centered on constructing a car and software program to assist it. Finally, she says, her design and its use of sensors and software program may very well be integrated into autos to stop site visitors accidents.
“The scholarship meant the world [to me]. I felt so honored that I used to be chosen to obtain the award for all of the laborious work I put into my mission,” she says.
A 12 months after receiving the scholarship, she was invited to the California Capitol, in Sacramento, to current her mission and focus on selling STEM fields together with her U.S. consultant.
The cash supported her schooling at California Baptist College, in Riverside, the place she earned a bachelor’s diploma in electrical and laptop engineering.
“Successful the scholarship gave me confidence that my engineering ardour might change into a profession. It was the beginning of my extremely enjoyable and thrilling skilled journey.” —2015 winner Alex Tacescu
She advises aspiring engineers that “the journey could be difficult, however the sense of accomplishment and the influence you’ll make on the planet are greater than well worth the effort.”
The 2014 scholarship recipient, George Morgan,offered A Multi-Architectural Strategy to the Improvement of Embedded Software program. His goal, he says, was to make {hardware} and software program improvement extra accessible. He remodeled his mission into a collection of improvement instruments for embedded-systems engineers to expedite operations.
“I bear in mind strolling on stage and feeling the thrill of being acknowledged for my mission,” Morgan says. “In that instantaneous, all my laborious work felt validated, and I knew somebody understood the extent of issue and dedication required to succeed in that time.”
The scholarship supported his schooling on the Rochester Institute of Expertise, in New York, the place he graduated with a bachelor’s diploma in laptop engineering in 2017.
He started working at Tesla in 2018 on the AI crew, coping with the software program and {hardware} that powers the electrical autos’ autopilot.
Lately named amongstForbes’ 30 Beneath 30 in AI, he based Symbolica, a research-focused startup that develops foundational AI fashions and options to the transformer structure utilized in ChatGPT.
Spaceflight engineer and a crash-prevention-system designer
Alex Tacescu acquired the 2015 scholarship for Challenge Maverick (now often known as Mavdrive). The mission let customers stand upright whereas shifting round on a wheeled, motorized 0.6- by 0.6-meter platform. It’s just like a Segway however extra steady, with 4 wheels as an alternative of two, and every powered by independently managed motors. He says it serves as a pathway to be taught new applied sciences together with management engineering, robotic autonomy, simulation, and AI-powered machine imaginative and prescient.
“Successful the scholarship gave me confidence that my engineering ardour might change into a profession,” Tacescu says. “It was the beginning of my extremely enjoyable and thrilling skilled journey. I’ll always remember the second I used to be known as up on that stage.”
He earned a bachelor’s diploma in science and robotics engineering and a grasp’s diploma in robotics engineering, each from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Massachusetts. He joined SpaceX as a Falcon flight software program engineer and contributed to 2 groundbreaking missions. DART was the primary human-made merchandise to measurably transfer a celestial physique, and Inspiration4 was the primary all-civilian mission to orbit. Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to House is now on Netflix.
After practically three years at SpaceX, Tacescu joined Inversion House as a flight software program engineer. The startup is concentrated on creating re-entry autos.
He advises highschool seniors to “discover their ardour and preserve at it. It’s going to be laborious, and there will probably be very tough moments, however having it a part of your ardour makes it a lot extra enjoyable, particularly when these accomplishments begin coming in.”
Kerem Bayhan, the 2021 scholarship recipient, received for a mission centered on a system to assist forestall underride automobile crashes, which happen when a car collides with the rear or facet of a big truck and will get caught beneath it.
Pushed by a need to make an influence on human lives, Bayhan says, he shifted his focus from engineering to drugs. He’s presently a scholar at Hacettepe College, in Ankara, Türkiye.
“Successful the IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship award was an unbelievable and surprising honor,” he says. “To have my mission acknowledged by IEEE, one of many largest and most prestigious organizations in engineering, was immensely rewarding.”
He says he believes engineering abilities are invaluable throughout many fields: “The analytical considering, problem-solving skills, and creativity on the core of engineering can set people aside, it doesn’t matter what path they select to observe.”
Climate balloons, a glaucoma-detection machine, and drones
Amon Schumann was the 2022 scholarship recipient based mostly on his Small Radiosondes on a Nice Mission mission, a sustainable climate balloon that’s eco-friendly, cost-effective, and stays within the air longer than conventional ones. Now he’s finding out electrical engineering at Technische Universität Berlin, the place he has found an curiosity in high-frequency expertise and circuit design.
After receiving the scholarship, Schumann enhanced his ISEF mission by including a live-streaming digital camera and extra sensors.
“My system initially allowed for flights lasting a number of weeks,” he says. “I’ve since refined it to allow the balloons to gather information within the stratosphere for a number of months.”
Successful the scholarship was a major motivator, he says, because it validated the potential of his basement-developed mission and confirmed its potential for broad influence.
“Receiving the scholarship gave me the chance to change into deeply concerned with IEEE,” he says, “opening doorways to attach with key decision-makers in science and expertise and resulting in my scholar researcher function” at a Berlin-based analysis institute specializing in high-frequency electronics.
Rohan Kalia, the 2023 scholarship recipient, is a senior at Wheeler Excessive College in Marietta, Ga. For his successful mission, he developed EyePal, an affordable software for early glaucoma detection.
After receiving the scholarship, he continued to refine his mission, enhancing its performance.
“I open-sourced the components, so if anybody desires to construct on my machine, they will,” Kalia says.
He was honored to obtain the award, he says, figuring out that previous scholarship winners had made such inventive tasks.
“I actually loved the dialog with my interviewers,” he says. “We mentioned the technical points of attainable options and their trade-offs.”
He advises highschool college students to “preserve an open thoughts” about their pursuits.
“Be interested by many alternative issues,” he suggests, “as they join in attention-grabbing methods. When you discover a subject you possibly can’t cease fascinated with, begin a mission to discover it.”
Angelina Kim was final 12 months’s scholarship recipient. She is a highschool senior on the Bishop’s College in La Jolla, Calif., the place she is president of the All Women STEM Society, a nonprofit, student-led group that holds free month-to-month workshops for ladies in grades 3 to eight throughout San Diego. She plans to review electrical engineering at MIT.
Kim received the scholarship for her Autonomous Scout and Rescue UAVs for Ocean Security. She developed a drone that would survey the shoreline, taking pictures and analyzing them to determine rip currents.
To proceed her work associated to the mission, she is chief government of AngelTech, a startup devoted to enhancing public security by progressive applied sciences.
“By AngelTech, I’m partnering with native lifeguards to deploy my lifeguard scout and rescue drones on close by seashores,” she says.
She is also creating new applied sciences to boost public security, she says, together with a synchronized show created by a number of machine screens. She holds a patent for the invention.
She says she was thrilled to obtain the scholarship as a result of she knew it could assist her develop priceless contacts inside IEEE and supply assist for her future analysis.
“I hope to make use of the connections I’ve made by the scholarship to share my analysis and networking experiences with fellow engineers and corporations, and to function a mentor for younger ladies who’ve restricted entry to STEM sources,” she says.
An article about this 12 months’s recipient is scheduled to be revealed in The Institute in August.
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