As the spring semester comes to a close, numerous engineering and computing students, who have excelled in both academics and extracurricular activities, are receiving honors and recognition.

Maribeth Bottorff, a computer science major, was awarded a Caroliniana Award for her outstanding involvement in the Carolina community. The Caroliniana Awards recognize senior undergraduate students who have been the tireless, behind the scenes workers that every successful activity or organization needs. Bottorff was extremely active in mentoring younger female students. She led a group of 17 students to the Grace Hopper Conference, which celebrates the contributions of women to the computing field. Also, she is a member of the Women in Computing Group where she served as co-president, and she was instrumental in forming the Computer Science and Engineering Student Advisory Council. Bottorff graduates in May with Leadership Distinction and will go on to work for Google.

James Frederick "Weber" Pike was awarded one of USC’s highest honors, the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award. The Sullivan Awards are given each year for outstanding achievements, campus leadership, exemplary character and service to the community. Pike was a student athlete and involved in numerous student activities at Carolina while maintaining a 3.934 GPA in biomedical engineering. As a member of the Gamecock baseball team, Pike played both the 2014 and 2015 seasons and served on the Student Athletic Advisory Committee. Pike also served as treasurer for Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society.

Elizabeth Crummy, a senior biomedical engineering major in the South Carolina Honors College, was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. This year, the NSF awarded 2,000 three-year Graduate Research Fellowships of approximately $138,000 each to outstanding college and university students. Crummy is a McNair Scholar and a member of both Phi Beta Kappa, the most prestigious undergraduate honor society in the country, and Tau Beta Pi. Crummy has been very active in service projects with Engineers Without Borders, serving at treasurer and president, and the Rotaract Club, serving as vice-president and president. She is currently a Magellan Ambassador for the Office of Undergraduate Research. Her undergraduate research, for which she earned both a Magellan Scholar grant and a SURF grant, took place under Dr. Melissa Moss, whose research focuses on Alzheimer's Disease. During the summer of 2015, she participated in the Conte Center Summer Undergraduate Research Experience in neuroscience at Vanderbilt, and presented that research at the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) 2015 National Conference in Tampa, FL. Crummy will go on to pursue her Neuroscience Ph.D. at the University of Washington, Seattle.

One of the most coveted scholarships in civil and environmental engineering was awarded to USC civil and environmental engineering doctoral candidate, Ali Tabrizi. Tabrizi is this year’s recipient of a $10,000 United States Society on Dams scholarship. The United States Society on Dams (USSD) awards scholarships each year to its student members whose academic programs and graduate-level research have a potential for developing practical solutions to dam design and construction problems. Tabrizi’s research focused on embankment dam failures resulting from the historic flooding that occurred in South Carolina during October 2015. His research is applicable to failure mechanisms related to overtopping of embankment dams and levees worldwide. Tabrizi is a member of USSD Committee on Levees, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, Engineers without Borders, and the South Carolina State Guard Engineering Command.

The Theta Tau Engineering Fraternity received the 2016 USC Student Organization of the Year Award. This award recognizes a student organization that has made a lasting impact upon the Carolina Community, fostered leadership opportunities for its members, and upheld organization’s mission and values. Theta Tau is the oldest, largest, and foremost Fraternity for Engineers. Since its founding at the University of Minnesota in 1904, more than 35,000 have been initiated over the years. With emphasis on quality and a strong fraternal bond, the Fraternity has chapters only at ABET accredited schools and limits the number of student members in any one of its chapters across the nation.