Student Highlights
By Editorial Staff
Highlights
Student Recognition
A look at student achievements, awards, fellowships, research honors and national recognition from across Auburn Engineering.
Student Highlights
Olaniyi Afolayan
Olaniyi Afolayan, a doctoral student in civil and environmental engineering, was named a 2025 Trailblazers in Engineering Fellow, a national honor recognizing emerging leaders addressing critical engineering challenges. His research focuses on internal erosion and soil piping in slopes, advancing infrastructure resilience and environmental sustainability.
Ayuba Akinpelu and Francis Mekunye
Ayuba Akinpelu and Francis Mekunye, graduate students in chemical engineering, earned Merck’s 2025 Next Gen Leaders in Chemistry awards, a national honor recognizing outstanding research contributions from emerging scientists. Their work focuses on advancing biotechnology and nanomaterials, with potential applications in health care, electronics and other emerging technologies.
Aidan Anderson
Aidan Anderson, a senior in computer science and software engineering, was named 2025 Student of the Year by the Alabama Governor’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, a statewide honor recognizing leadership and advocacy. Despite vision loss, he has excelled in cybersecurity research and professional development.
Praveen Ayyanathan and Austin Miranda
Praveen Ayyanathan and Austin Miranda, aerospace engineering students, earned top honors from the Greater Huntsville Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, with Ayyanathan named Graduate Student of the Year and Miranda Undergraduate Student of the Year.
Anna Kate Boles, Gavin Lewis and Will Reynolds
Anna Kate Boles, Gavin Lewis and Will Reynolds won first place at Booz Allen Hamilton’s national Summer Games internship competition. Competing against more than 140 interns nationwide, their team developed a retrofit system to make older drones autonomous, earning a patent opportunity and full-time job offers.
Katherine Clemmons, Chris Raj and Ayden Kemp
Katherine Clemmons, Chris Raj and Ayden Kemp, aerospace engineering graduates, won first place at NASA’s 2025 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Academic Linkage Competition for their project, “DEMETER.” The concept explores sustainable life-support systems for Mars, including using plants to recycle air, water and nutrients for long-duration space missions.
Catherine Franco and Eirik Mulder
Catherine Franco, a junior in electrical engineering, and Eirik Mulder, a senior in aerospace engineering and computer science, were named 2025 Distinguished Undergraduates by the Universities Space Research Association, marking Auburn’s first recipients of the national award. Each received a $5,000 scholarship recognizing exceptional achievement in STEM research and leadership.
Stanton Freeman
Stanton Freeman, a graduate student in civil engineering, earned the 2025–26 Tribute to the Founders Fellowship from the American Concrete Institute, a national award recognizing outstanding research in concrete materials. His work focuses on developing improved methods to measure concrete shrinkage, helping advance the performance and durability of modern infrastructure.
Taimoor Hassan
Taimoor Hassan, a graduate student in computer science and software engineering, developed Qalb, the world’s largest language model built exclusively for Urdu, spoken by more than 230 million people worldwide. The model generates fluent, context-aware responses and expands access to advanced AI tools for underserved language communities.
Brock Huner and Lili Rahimikhameneh
Brock Huner and Lili Rahimikhameneh, graduate students in civil and environmental engineering, earned national recognition in the United States Society on Dams’ Kim de Rubertis Student Scholarship competition, placing second and third, respectively. Their research focuses on modeling dam overtopping and erosion processes to improve the safety and resilience of dams and levees.
Mason Matrazzo
Mason Matrazzo, a graduate student in electrical and computer engineering, won the Ernest K. Smith Student Paper Competition at the National Radio Science Meeting, becoming Auburn’s first recipient of the award.
Marrin Morris
Marrin Morris, a junior in biosystems engineering, was named Auburn Engineering’s 2025 Frank Vandegrift Co-op Student of the Year for her work with the Montgomery Water Works & Sanitary Sewer Board, gaining hands-on experience in water and wastewater engineering.
Eirik Mulder
Eirik Mulder, a senior in aerospace engineering and computer science, earned the Astronaut Scholarship and the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, two of the nation’s most prestigious honors for undergraduate STEM researchers. His work focuses on astrodynamics and spacecraft trajectory design, supporting advanced research in spaceflight and orbital mechanics.
Tori Phillips
Tori Phillips, a graduate student in chemical engineering, won first place at Auburn University’s 12th Graduate Engineering Research Showcase for her poster, “Modeling Hydraulic Redistribution Using Transparent Soil.” Her research uses transparent soil experiments to study how deep-rooted plants redistribute water through soil, with applications in agriculture and stormwater management.
Keanna Tennyson
Keanna Tennyson, a graduate student in computer science and software engineering, received the Auburn Student Veteran General Annual Fellowship, becoming the first CSSE graduate student to earn the award. An Air Force veteran, Tennyson conducts research with the Auburn University Transportation Research Institute to develop software tools that improve transportation safety.
Vivian Usha
Vivian Usha, a graduate research assistant in biosystems engineering, received the Rockey Fellowship from the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research, a national award supporting leaders in agricultural sustainability. Her research focuses on developing biochar that captures phosphorus from wastewater and repurposes it as a slow-release fertilizer, improving water quality and soil health.