March 2022 Five10 Report

Waguih Ishak, School of Engineering Advisory Board member and immediate past chair, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering. The academy recognized Waguih’s contributions to the design and manufacture of VCELS and leadership in establishing their applications. Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice or education and to those who have pioneered new and developing fields of technology, made major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developed/implemented innovative approaches to engineering education. Waguih serves as division Vice President and Chief Technologist, Research and Development, for Corning, Inc. He holds a doctorate in Electrical Engineering from McMaster University, as well as degrees in Solid State Physics and undergraduate degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering. Waguih joins Engineering Advisory Board member Hemant Thapar in membership of the National Academy of Engineering. Congratulations, Waguih!

DEI Distinguished Lecture Series: The School of Engineering hosted its third speaker in our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Distinguished Lecture Series on February 10. Watch the presentation from Aaron Dominguez, Provost and Professor of Physics at The Catholic University of America, and hear his talk on "Particle Physics and the STEM Workforce." Watch here. 

Senior Design: Save the date for the School of Engineering's 52nd Annual Senior Design Conference. This year's conference will be held on Thursday, May 12. We have 70 projects that will be presented in 17 sessions by 212 engineering seniors. Stay up to date by visiting our Senior Design web page. Judges' registration will open March 16 through April 14.

Order of the Engineer: The School of Engineering will hold its annual Order of the Engineer Ceremony in person on Thursday, June 2. Current seniors and graduate students are invited to participate as well as alumni/ae who may have not been able to in the past. View the SCU Engineering Order of the Engineer video to learn more about The Order. Register here.

SCU’s Associated General Contractors (AGC) student organization had four teams represent Santa Clara University in this year’s Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) competition in Reno. SCU students won first place in the Mixed-Use Project category (Isabel Andaya, Daniel Lopez-Blas, Vanessa De La Rosa, Rianna Maulino, Mia Vlaming, Patrick Hagerty, and Luke Lazzarini) and third place in the Sustainable Building category (Rebecca Ridao, Renae McCoy, Kyle Ralston, Sam Cannell, Claudia Newell, Margo Tolan, and Eduardo Villegas Chavez). SCU received a third award with Karina Martin who won first place in the Alternates category with a team of students from other universities. The student teams were coached by industry professionals from local Bay Area construction firms. AGC is advised and mentored by Hisham Said and Erica Valentine (both Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering).

SCU’s Internet of Things Research Lab has been awarded the Best Collaborative US Partner among 30 US institutions participating in the Next Generation Internet (NGI) Program funded by European Commission. Three years ago, Behnam Dezfouli (Computer Science and Engineering) established SCU as a node of this program by proposing projects in the area of Internet of Things, and since then, he has supervised several projects involving researchers and innovators from Europe. The NGI Explorers Program was a three-year project starting in January 2019 with an aim to reinforce the EU-US cooperation and strategic partnerships in Next Generation Internet (NGI) to establish a continuous dialogue among the key actors in the US and Europe and to implement focused projects for joint developments.

Taylor Yamane '20 (Mechanical Engineering) was named "Miss Canyon Hills for the Miss Anaheim Organization" and will be competing for Miss California in June. She is currently an engineer at Northrop Grumman, a multinational aerospace and defense technology company. She started a social impact initiative called “Full STEAM Ahead!” where STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. She states, "I use my platform to advocate for women in STEAM and for the importance of the arts in STEM education." Taylor was Miss Santa Clara in 2018, Miss University Heights in 2020, and now Miss Canyon Hills.

Day of Giving is coming, April 6! Watch for challenges and many opportunities to support your favorite programs in the School of Engineering.