Congratulations to three Engineering Physics students who have been selected as Outstanding Graduates of the College of Engineering and Applied Science for May 2016.
Outstanding Graduate of the College — Andrew "Oak" Nelson
Oak Nelson has, most recently, been working with Professor Tobin Munsat at the dust accelerator at IMPACT. During his undergraduate work, Oak spent a semester working on proton fast ignition at the Technische Universität Darmstadt in Germany to gain experience in the highly specialized field.
As an undergraduate, he also has been a co-author on two scientific papers. He has also received the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship.
This is the second semester in a row that an EPEN major was selected as the Outstanding Graduate of the College. Peter Madigan was selected for that honor in December 2015.
Outstanding Graduate for Service — Maithreyi Gopalakrishnan (EPEN BS/MS)
Maithreyi Gopalakrishnan has been working with Professor Margaret Murnane on studies of magnetic dynamics using ultrafast lasers. Recognizing the growing problem of pollution in India, She created a company that builds hybrid electric conversion kits for small vehicles in developing countries.
Gopalakrishnan and her team participated in CU-Boulder's New Venture Challenge, and their revolutionary hybrid kit earned the venture the Social Impact Prize, which awards $3,000 to the business that best harnesses commercial models to create social and environmental change.
Jack Olsen was selected as the Outstanding Graduate for Service in May 2014.
Outstanding Graduate for Research — Nikola Maksimovic, AMEN and EPEN
Nikola Maksimovic has been working with Professor Scott Parker on plasma physics simulations. He has been working with field aligned Fourier filtering schemes in magnetic geometry. Maksimovic was selected as the 2015 Raul and Ruth Stern Scholar, an honor awarded by the Department of Physics. Recently, he won the 2015 Oscar Buneman Award for Visualization of Plasmas during the International Conference on Numerical Plasmas in August 2015 (Pictured left with Physics Professor Scott Parker.)
This is the fourth semester in a row that an EPEN major was selected as the Outstanding Graduate for Research. The previous three were Luke Long in December 2015, Jasmine Brewer in May 2015, and Rees McNally in December 2014.