2013-2014 Award Winners

Niharika Singh
BS and MS Electrical and Computer Engineering

CARNEGIE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Presenter: Annette Jacobson
Associate Dean, Undergraduate Studies, CIT, and Teaching Professor, Chemical Engineering

Niharika Singh will graduate in May 2014 with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical and computer engineering in four years. She had been on the Dean's List several semesters and she is an Andrew Carnegie Scholar as well. In addition to her academics, she has also been an active member of the community. She has been involved in various positions with WinECE (Women in ECE) since her sophomore year, and is the current vice-president of the organization; she is also the vice-president of IEEE. She has written several articles for the SciTech (Science and Technology) section of the Tartan throughout her time at CMU. She has also been working part time ever since she started college: she worked as a library assistant her freshman year, a peer tutor for Academic Development for the next two years, and a teaching assistant and lab developer in her final year. She has been involved in an undergraduate research project about the effects of aging on transistor performance since her sophomore year, and travelled to present her work at the TECHCON conference in Austin. She has had internships with Caterpillar and Boeing, and applied for a patent for her work performed during the latter. She has been the recipient of scholarships from Boeing and IEEE among others. She has started an outreach initiative for local high school students called ECE Outreach, which is run entirely by volunteers and gives high school students a chance to perform hands-on lab activities with ECE students on the weekends. This effort has received grants and donations from alumni, and has invited back alumni to mentor students. After graduation, she will be working as a patent lawyer in Boston.

Laura Stiles
BA Creative Writing, additional major in Professional Writing

DIETRICH COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

Presenter: Jim Daniels
Thomas S. Baker Professor of English and Creative Writing

Laura Stiles is a Creative Writing, Professional Writing double major in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences who will be graduating with university and college honors in May 2014. She is a member of the International English Honor Society, Sigma Tau Delta, as well as the Academic Collegiate Honor Society, Phi Kappa Phi. She is also the 2013 prose winner of Carnegie Mellon’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Writing Awards, and just recently completed her creative writing senior honors thesis titled Girls at the Lake and Other Stories, a collection of fiction and non-fiction meant to raise awareness of social issues through the power of story.

During her time at Carnegie Mellon, Laura has thrown herself into numerous writing and literary activities. She is currently serving as Co-Editor-in-Chief of The Oakland Review, Carnegie Mellon’s undergraduate literary-arts journal, and in the past has also served as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Carnegie Mellon chapter of HerCampus.com, as a manuscript reader for Carnegie Mellon University Press, and as a copy-editor for Carnegie Mellon’s newspaper, The Tartan. In the spring of 2013, she also studied creative writing abroad in Sheffield, England.

Laura is currently interviewing for technical writing or other professional writing opportunities following graduation, but eventually hopes to pursue her passion for creativity and stories in a career in editing and publishing. She would also like to do more traveling, and possibly return to school to pursue an MFA in creative writing.

Megan Garvey
BS Business Administration- Finance, additional major in Statistics

TEPPER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

Presenter: Stephen Pajewski
Director, Undergraduate Business Administration Program

Megan Garvey will graduate in May with University Honors from the Tepper School of Business with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration – Finance Track and an additional major in Statistics. She has spent four years as a member of the Women’s Varsity Swimming and Diving Team, specializing in butterfly and freestyle. She has been honored by the College Swimming Coaches Association as an NCAA All-American athlete and an NCAA Academic All-American. She is also a Varsity record holder for the Tartans in the 200 yard Butterfly and the 800 yard Freestyle relay. Additionally, she serves on the Student Athlete Advisory Council seeking to engage the broader campus community in athletics.

During her time at Tepper, Megan has served as a teaching assistant for Principles of Economics and enjoys mentoring students in her field. She has had three summer internships in Finance, the first at UBS Financial Services in Philadelphia, PA, the second at The Boeing Company (Defense) in Philadelphia, as well as most recently at Microsoft in Redmond, WA. After graduation, Megan will be working for IBM as a Business Analytics and Optimization consultant as part of their Global Business Services.

Corinne Clinch
BS Civil Engineering, additional major in Biomedical Engineering

Presenter: Annette Jacobson
Associate Dean, Undergraduate Studies, CIT, and Teaching Professor, Chemical Engineering

50th ANNIVERSARY SCHOLARSHIP IN HONOR OF MARY SURESH AND HER DEDICATION TO THE HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

Corinne Clinch is graduating with university honors from a degree in civil engineering with an additional major in biomedical engineering. She has been a teaching assistant for two introductory computer science courses and been active in Explorer's Club, AEPi Buggy, and Dancer's Symposium. This school year, Corinne worked in the Student Activities Office, leading outdoor adventure and environmental stewardship trips for the CMU community. Off campus, she volunteers for Pittsburgh's homeless population and Boy Scout troops, babysits for a local family, and organizes acro-yoga and camping events.

Corinne interned with TechBridgeWorld as a software developer in Ghana to better understand international development projects. Last summer, she worked on NSF-funded water purification research in rural parts of South Africa. She continued this work by forming an interdisciplinary team to create an emergency purification device in her capstone design course. She is continuing to develop water filters in collaboration with the non-profit Water is Life and will be travelling back to Ghana for field research in August.

This summer she will primarily be working with Dr. Wilbert van Panhuis as a MIDAS scholar to create visualization tools for contagious disease data. In the fall, she will conclude a master’s degree in biomedical engineering at CMU. In the spring of 2015, Corinne will start a Master of Public Health degree in Behavioral and Community Health Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh.