November 2024: Statler Circuit Department Digest and Awards

Chemical and Biomedical Engineering

Vitor Gama, a chemical engineering graduate student who won the 2024 Environmental Division Graduate Student Paper 2nd Place Award at the recent American Institute of Chemical Engineers annual meeting. This award recognizes outstanding original research papers that contribute to environmental protection through the application of chemical engineering. Vitor's advisors are Fernando V. Lima and Oishi Sanyal, and co-author chemical engineering PhD candidate Beatriz Dantas. 

Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering

Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering Teaching Assistant Professor  Dimas Abreu Archanjo Dutra was selected as one of six judges for the final pitch event of the season, the WVU ZinnStarter Pitch Competition. The competition is divided into two categories where five students pitching their products/inventions followed by five students pitching their businesses with a $5,000 cash prize for the winner of each category. The competition took place on Nov. 7, 2024.

Mining Engineering

Mining Engineering Teaching Assistant Professor Amy McBrayer received the Rossiter W. Raymond Memorial Award for her paper "A review of Current Scheduling and Design Practices in the Powder River Basin." This paper documents history of this important mining regions, delves into the evolving production demand in the region, and uncovers challenges that mining engineers face in regards to mine design and production scheduling. The award will be presented on Feb. 26, 2025 at the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration's 2025 Annual Conference in Denver Colorado. Co-authored with a professor at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. This award is only given to papers with dual authors with the lead author under 35 at the time of the paper's peer review and only given to members of the Society for Mining Metallurgy and Exploration every 4 years as the award rotates through the 4 AIME member societies. 

Wadsworth Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Mohammed Tamim Zaki, a civil and environmental engineering graduate student, won the 2023 Best Perspective and Review Paper Award for ES&T Engineering for his paper "A Critical Review of Data Science Applications in Resource Recovery and Carbon Capture from Organic Waste." ACS ES&T Engineering editorial team publishes the highest quality research outputs in environmental engineering and technology. Zaki's advisor is assistant professor Kevin Orner.

Sarah Nelson, an undergraduate research assistant in assistant professor Leslie Hopkinson's group in the civil and environmental engineering department, placed third in a poster competition at the 2024 Ohio River Basin Alliance. Her poster "Long-term water quality trends in the Monongahela River Basin," investigates statistical trends in acid mine drainage (AMD) in our local waterways — a vital area of study in West Virginia.

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