Clemson CECAS Grads

Some photos that explain why often, our graduate students end up loving Clemson even 𝘔𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝘏𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘯 🟠🟣

We hope that graduate engineering students and everyone else enjoys another concert weekend in Tiger Town! 🤠

Clemson University Clemson Engineering, Computing And Applied Sciences

A CECAS Graduate Student Advisory Board Travel Grant took twin PhD students from Clemson Automotive Engineering to Austria! 🇦🇹

Tanmay Samak and Chinmay Samak had a full schedule at , where they presented a paper entitled "Mixed-Reality Digital Twins: Leveraging the Physical and Virtual Worlds for Hybrid Sim2Real Transition of Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Policies." They also presented two workshop papers, one of them receiving an award! And on top of all that, they co-organized two autonomous racing competitions, one simulated and one real.

Congratulations to this dynamic duo for conducting top level research, sharing their expertise with the academic community, and for winning a travel grant from CECAS GSAB this year which helped fund their travels. Amazing work!

Clemson University Clemson Engineering, Computing And Applied Sciences

Heard it was national mascot day 🐅 Here are some photos of The Tiger and Cubby 1/2 with graduate students in CECAS programs over the years! 📸

Clemson Engineering, Computing And Applied Sciences Clemson University

If there has ever been a student who was "All-In" at Clemson University, Dr. Andrea Vera Martinez is it 🐅💯 Last month she graduated with her PhD in Bioengineering, her third Clemson degree after earning a Master of Science in BIOE and a Bachelor of Science with a concentration in Biomaterials. Her dissertation was entitled "The Impact of Biomaterial Selection, Porosity, and Topography on the Osteoconductive Potential of Orthopaedic Implants" and her work consisted of studies where human stem cells were seeded onto various orthopaedic structures with different bulk materials, porosities, and surface roughness to study their effects on the expression of markers indicative of new bone formation. Most of her graduate work was done at the CUBEInc Greenville Bioengineering Campus at Prisma Health.

When she was not in the lab, she worked as a Graduate Administrative Assistant in the CECAS Grad Office, planning events designed to help students learn about graduate school resources that can help with the transition from undergrad. This was a personal effort for Andrea, being a first generation college student and the very first in her family to hold a doctoral degree of any kind. She helped create the the CECAS Graduate Student Advisory Board, serving as the BIOE rep for 3 terms and the President for 2 terms. She created and hosted the CECAST Podcast, assisted with STEM All In, attended conferences like SWE and SHPE as the graduate representative from Clemson, and participated in road trips across the state to discuss pathways to graduate STEM degrees at Clemson.

As for her future plans now that she has her PhD in hand, she is conducting interviews with hopes to work in research and development for the medical device industry.

Congratulations to one of Clemson's best, Dr. Andrea Vera Martinez, on her third and final degree, and all the success she had in Tiger Town!

Clemson Engineering, Computing And Applied Sciences Clemson Bioengineering

Graduate students from Electrical Engineering and Automotive Engineering joined undergrads from ECE and ME, and students from Greenville Tech, in Detroit where they won the Ram ProMasters of Box Delivery Award as part of the Battery Workforce Challenge! 🔋

In the first photo (L-R), Venkata Griddaluru (PhD EE student + Project Manager), Michael Brown (BS ME student), Enzo Cesar (BS EE student), Zachary Minnich (BS ME student), Shantanu More (MS AUE student), Anoop Kumar (MS AUE student), and Saroj Paudel (AUE PhD student + Engineering Manager) pose with their award for their work over the last three years on this challenge organized by the US Department of Energy!

Also on hand were (second photo) Ian Anderson (ME BS student, 5th from right), Terell Gamble (Greenville Tech student, 7th from right), and Miles Burgess (Greenville Tech student, 8th from right). Together, these students along with faculty from both institutions and mentors from Stellantis (photo 4) participated in this competition that provides an immersive hands-on learning experience for university and vocational students to gain critical battery design and integration experience.

While universities across the country competed, the Clemson + Greenville Tech team created a vision that utilizes a coordinated fleet of RAM ProMaster EVs for wildlife wildfire rescue: Mobile Drone Command Centers to track the blaze from above, and silent, zero-emission ambulances to safely transport stressed animals without the noise of a gas engine. For this effort, they were recognized at a ceremony in Detroit, where Saroj accepted the recognition (photo 3) to bring back home to Clemson!

To say that our graduate students get to do amazing things is an understatement, and the experience and recognition of the Battery Workforce Challenge team is just the latest example!

2 new chairs from CECAS departments were recently celebrated as having finished the second ever New Chair Onboarding cohort! Dr. Robert Prucka (left) Department Chair of Automotive Engineering and Dr. Alexander Leonessa (right) Department Chair of Mechanical Engineering, were part of this nine-month, cohort-based program designed to support faculty as they transition into one of the University’s most complex leadership roles.

These two now oversee departments with some of the largest numbers of graduate students in the college. And having gone through sessions of mentoring circles, success coaches and interactive discussions led by experienced academic leaders, subject-matter experts and University professionals from across Clemson, Dr. Prucka and Dr. Leonessa are well positioned to lead their graduate programs to new heights!

Low quality memes, high quality laughs! Had to get in on the trend, because being a graduate student can sometimes feel like being in 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘚𝘩𝘰𝘸 😆

Happy Friday everyone! 👋

Daniel Hong took his CECAS GSAB Travel Grant win to help him chase his dreams in the desert! 🏜️ Daniel, a current MS student in Computer Science, was one of the select awardees this year, which helped to cover his presentation at the IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision in Tucson, Arizona. His presentation was entitled "Motion Focus Recognition in Fast-Moving Egocentric Video."

He wasn't the only Tiger in the Grand Canyon State. Pictured in photo 1 are Hao Wang, a PhD student in Computer Science and his PhD advisor, Dr. Abolfazl Razi.

Congrats to Daniel on his big win and for representing Clemson so well!

For the ones that didn’t make it back home 🇺🇸