Annually, the College of Graduate Studies sponsors graduate student awards for excellence in research and teaching. Acknowledging graduate students for their accomplishments is an important part of providing a rewarding academic experience. The College of Graduate Studies offers these awards annually to recognize our outstanding graduate students in a variety of categories:
- Outstanding Dissertation (completed dissertation in Spring, Summer, or Fall semesters)
- Outstanding Master’s Thesis (completed thesis in Spring, Summer, or Fall semesters)
- Award for Excellence by a Graduate Teaching Assistant (for GTAs who are not instructors of record, but provide teaching support under the direction of a lead teacher)
- Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching (for instructors of record)
- Outstanding Graduate Creative Work (Currently enrolled, degree-seeking, graduate students in good standing, or students who completed a UCF graduate program)
Information, such as eligibility and application requirements, for each award is located at the following site: https://graduate.ucf.edu/awards-and-recognition/. Winners of previous Graduate Awards of Excellence at the college level are listed here: https://grad.cecs.ucf.edu/awards-and-support/graduate-student-awards/.
Faculty should submit their nominations to their department’s Graduate Program Director by 5:00 PM on TBD or an earlier deadline set by the Graduate Program Director. Afterwards, each CECS department will advance up to one nomination per category to the CECS Academic Affairs Office no later than 12:00 PM on TBD. Only nominations from Graduate Program Directors will be considered.
It is up to each CECS department to best determine how to select its nominee for each category. The CECS Awards Committee will review the nominations from the departments and select the CECS nominee in each category. The applications for the CECS nominees will be forwarded to the College of Graduate Studies. At the university level, the Graduate Council will review the applications from the colleges and make recommendations to the Dean of the College of Graduate Studies, who will make the final selections and notify award winners. Each university-wide award winner will receive a certificate and a cash award of $1,500.
It is a pleasure to celebrate the success and excellence of our graduate students.
For each of the categories listed above (Outstanding Dissertation, Outstanding Master’s Thesis, GTA Award, Graduate Student Teaching), the list below archives the CECS nominees. For nominees that were selected as the university-wide winners, their names are highlighted by **.
Outstanding Dissertation
(Selected university wide winners are highlighted by **) **Furkan Luleci, Civil Engineering, PhD, Investigating Emerging Technologies In Civil Structural Health Monitoring: Generative Artificial Intelligence And Virtual Reality **Ce Zheng, Computer Vision, PhD, Reconstructing 3D Humans From Visual Data Dr. Sijie Zhu, Computer Science PhD, Toward Real-World Cross-View Image Geo-Localization **Dr. Shraddha Nehate, Electrical Engineering PhD, Characterization of Hydrogenated Boron Carbide and Boron Carbon Nitride Thin Films and Applications **Dr. Lin Hu, Materials Science and Engineering PhD, Designing Metal Nanocatalysts and Tuning their Microenvironment for Gas-involving Electrocatalysis No Nominee **Dr. Jared Church, Environmental Engineering PhD, Electrochemical Microsensors for in Situ Monitoring of Chemical Compounds in Engineering and Natural Aquatic Systems Dr. Khurram Soomro, Computer Science PhD, Online, Supervised and Unsupervised action localization in videos **Dr. Afshin Dehghan, Computer Science PhD, Global Data Association for Multiple Pedestrian Tracking **Dr. Juneyoung Park, Civil Engineering PhD, Exploration and Development of Crash Modification Factors and Functions for Single and Multiple Treatments Dr. He Shen, Mechanical Engineering PhD, Bio-Inspired Attitude Control of Micro Air Vehicles using Rich Information from Airflow Sensors Dr. Cuncong Zhong, Computer Science PhD, Computational Methods for Comparative Non-Coding RNA Analysis: From Structural Motif Identification to Genome-Wide Functional Classification **Dr. Abhishek Saha, Mechanical Engineering PhD, Evaporation, Precipitation Dynamics and Instability of Acoustically Levitated Functional Droplets **Dr. Haitham Bahaitham, Industrial Engineering, PhD, A Framework for Quantifying Sustainability of Lean Implementation in Healthcare Organizations Dr. Ehsan Yakhshi-Tafti, Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering, PhD, Thermally-Induced Motion of Droplets on a Thin Liquid Layer and its Application to Droplet Manipulation Platforms
Outstanding Master’s Thesis
(Selected university wide winners are highlighted by **) **Aaditya Bhatia, Computer Science MS, Advancing Policy Insights: Opinion Data Analysis and Discourse Structuring Using LLMs **Tajnuba Hasan, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering MS, Control of the Spar-buoy Based Wind Turbine Floating Platform through Mooring Line Actuation Timothy Grondin, Aerospace Engineering MS, Design and Mechanical Characterization of Functionally Graded Sandwich Beams Fabricated via Additive Manufacturing **Shahzeb Mustafa, Computer Science MS, Optimizing Peer Selection among Internet Service Providers (ISPs) **Daniela Diaz, Environmental Engineering MS, Emulsion Characterization Study for Improved Bilgewater Treatment and Management No Nominee **Kamol Chandra Roy, Civil Engineering MS, Understanding Crisis Communication and Mobility Resilience during Disasters from Social Media **Firat Irmak, Aerospace Engineering MSAE, A Flexible Physics-Based Lifing Method for Metals Under Creep and Thermomechanical Fatigue **Christian Garcia, Aerospace Engineering MSAE, Geolocation of Diseased Leaves in Strawberry Orchards for a Custom-Designed Octorotor **Jared Church, Environmental Engineering MS, Dishwashing Water Recycling System and Related Water Quality Standards for Military Use Erica R. LaBerge, Environmental Engineering MS, Study of The Formation and Control of Disinfection By-Products Originating from a Surface Water Supply on the Volcanic Island of Guam **Steven M. Kraft, Mechanical Engineering MS, The Characterization of the Effects of Stress Concentrations on the Mechanical Behavior of a Micronic Woven Wire Mesh **Ashley Ewh, Materials Science & Engineering MS, Effects of Allotropic Transformations on Interdiffusion Behavior in Binary Systems **Zhao Wang, Electrical Engineering MS, Nonlinear Estimation and Control for Assistive Robots Carson Slabaugh, Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering MS, Heat Transfer Augmentation in a Narrow Rectangular Duct with Dimples Applied to a Single Wall
Award for Excellence by a Graduate Teaching Assistant
(Selected university wide winners are highlighted by **) Ahmad Bany Abdelnabi, PhD, Modeling and Simulation **Mousam Hossain, PhD, Electrical and Computer Engineering Chien Hsuan Chen, Materials Science and Engineering PhD Timothy Copeland, Civil Engineering PhD **Brandy King, Computer Science MS No Nominee Burak Sen, Civil Engineering PhD Arup Kumar Ghosh, Computer Science PhD **Soheil Salehi Mobarakeh, Computer Engineering PhD Muamer Ali Abuzwidah, Civil Engineering PhD Wilawan Onkham, Industrial Engineering PhD Catherine Kammerer, Materials Science & Engineering PhD **Andrea Cumming, Environmental Engineering PhD Chowdhury K. A. Siddiqui, PhD, Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering
Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching
(Selected university wide winners are highlighted by **) No Nomination Jorge Sarmiento, Industrial Engineering and Management Systems Department PhD Alexis Benamira, Computer Science PhD Sreeram Sundaresh, Electrical Engineering PhD Sahar Hooshmand, Computer Science PhD No Nominee Pankaj Pramod Kulkarni, Mechanical Engineering PhD No Nominee No Nominee Mohamed Awwad, Industrial Engineering PhD Stephanie C. Bolyard, Environmental Engineering PhD Catherine Kammerer, Materials Science and Engineering PhD Saeed Hadian Niasar, Civil Engineering PhD Jonathan Cazalas, Computer Science PhD Mohamed Ahmed, Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering PhD
Outstanding Creative Work
(Selected university wide winners are highlighted by **) No Nomination Junayed Mahmud, Computer Science PhD
