ARTISTIC ENGINEER Won again, he has. Yes, Armin VahidMohammadi, a doctoral student in materials engineering, took home yet another blue ribbon, his second in a row, from the prestigious Materials Research Society’s semi-annual Science as Art competition for a depiction of the “Star Wars” character Yoda rendered from a family of 2-D nanomaterials called MXenes. Using a $500,000 JSM-7000F scanning electron microscope, the images VahidMohammadi mines from MXenes have in recent years dominated the growing competition circuit created by materials engineers who celebrate the artistic aspects of their research. VahidMohammadi wowed attendees at the fall 2018 MRS Meeting and Exhibit in Boston with the first place “MXene Turtle Under the Sea” he spotted in clouds of vanadium carbide. Two years earlier, his “Nano Lord Voldemort” was deemed best in show. At the spring 2019 MRS Meeting and Exhibit in Phoenix, he was again a Force to be reckoned with. His “Mxene Yoda,” created from a SEM scan of oxidized 2-D V2CTx particles that show promise as electrode material for supercapacitors and batteries, not only placed second, it put him in the record book. He’s now the most highly decorated doctoral student in the 14-year history of the competition, which is open to the nearly 15,000 MRS members across the globe. “The MXene Yoda image is particular in its own way, maybe similar to the Voldemort image, as it means a lot to the people in the United States,” VahidMohammadi said. “He is also one of my favorite characters in the ‘Star Wars’ series. I’m glad I was able to find him in the nanoscale world.”
STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS The student chapter of the American Concrete Institute was awarded an Excellent University Award in the 2018 ACI Awards for University Student Activities. Auburn was one of only 25 universities worldwide to receive the award. Brad Bayuga, a software engineering major with a German minor, was awarded the CongressBundestag Exchange for Young Professionals Fellowship to study and complete an internship in Germany. Industrial and systems engineering major Ambria Berksteiner was honored by Mayor Eddie DeLoach of Savannah, Georgia, as a leading ambassador for promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics to underrepresented students. Aerospace engineering graduate student Orie Cecil received the Solid Rockets Best Student Paper award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Propulsion and Energy Forum. Aerospace engineering major Samantha Cerio was named the Southeastern Conference Co-Scholar Athlete of the Year for gymnastics. Daylon Hester, a 2018 electrical and computer engineering graduate, was selected as the state of Alabama’s Outstanding Co-op Student of the Year for 2018.
Will Macoy, an industrial and systems engineering major and guard on the Auburn Tigers basketball team, was named to the 2018-19 National Association of Basketball Coaches Honors Court for academic achievement. Biosystems engineering graduate student Kritika Malhotra placed first in the Association of Agricultural, Biological and Food Engineers of Indian Origin Graduate Student Research Award. Software engineering major Mina Narayanan was named a finalist for the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship. Computer science majors Jeriel Ng, Taric Jain and Sai Dasika organized AuburnHacks, the first ever Major League Hacking event held at Auburn University.
