The Michigan State University College of Engineering recognized outstanding graduate students during its Graduate Awards Ceremony on April 30, celebrating doctoral research, academic achievement and the ability to communicate complex ideas with clarity and impact.
The annual awards highlight graduate students whose work reflects the breadth of Spartan Engineering, from artificial intelligence, advanced materials and biomedical innovation to sustainable infrastructure, environmental systems, computational modeling and mechanical design.
At a glance
The 2025-26 graduate student honorees include:
- 8 Fitch H. Beach Award recipients
- 10 Outstanding Graduate Student Award recipients
- 4 top honors 3MT® award winners
Fitch H. Beach Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research
The Fitch H. Beach Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research is the most prestigious research competition in the College of Engineering. The endowed award was established by Janet M. Beatty in honor of her uncle, Fitch H. Beach, and recognizes outstanding Ph.D. student researchers within the college.
Each department nominates one doctoral student for the award. Recipients are selected based on a review of their academic and professional records, as well as an oral presentation of their research. Awardees receive stipends, certificates and medals to be worn at graduation.
Top presentation awards
First place:
- Jinghan Jia, Computer Science and Engineering
- Advisor: Sijia Liu
Second place:
- Daniel Maldonado-Lopez, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
- Advisor: Jose Mendoza Cortes
Third place:
- Josué Kpodo, Biosystems Engineering
- Advisor: Amirpouyan Nejadhashemi
Departmental winners
- Mason Perillo, Biomedical Engineering
- Advisor: Erin Purcell
- Alireza Darzian Rostami, Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Advisor: Ali Zockaie
- Emily Bolger, Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering
- Advisor: Danny Caballero
- Lei Peng, Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Advisor: Yiming Deng
- Sunia Tanweer, Mechanical Engineering
- Advisor: Firas Khasawneh
Outstanding Graduate Student Awards
The Outstanding Graduate Student Awards recognize the most outstanding doctoral student in each program in the College of Engineering. Recipients are selected by faculty within their programs and receive a stipend, certificate and medal to be worn at graduation.
2025-26 recipients
- Enrique Alejandro Castellanos Franco, Biomedical Engineering
- Advisor: Taeho Kim
- Narindra Randriamiarintsoa, Biosystems Engineering
- Advisor: Bradley Marks
- Joelle Eaves, Chemical Engineering
- Advisor: Daniel Woldring
- Amirali Soltanpour, Civil Engineering
- Advisor: Mehrnaz Ghamami
- Ishika Ghosh, Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering
- Advisor: Liz Munch
- Pengfei He, Computer Science
- Advisor: Jiliang Tang
- Preston Fairchild, Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Advisor: Xiaobo Tan
- Zohre Eshghdoostkhatami, Environmental Engineering
- Advisor: Alison Cupples
- Md Monir Hossain, Materials Science
- Advisor: Ruigang Wang
- Chuwei Ye, Mechanical Engineering
- Advisors: Shaoting Lin and Zhaojian Li
Three Minute Thesis awards
The college also recognized the 2025-26 winners of the Three Minute Thesis, or 3MT®, competition, which challenges doctoral students to explain their research in three minutes using a single static slide.
The college’s 2026 competition was held April 10 and featured doctoral student finalists selected through department-level competitions.
2025-26 3MT award winners
First place:
- Autumn McLane-Svoboda, Biomedical Engineering “Sniffing out lung cancer: What honeybees can teach us about early detection.”
Second place:
- Faizan Ahmad Lali, Civil and Environmental Engineering “Improving Pavement Models for Better Road Performance”
Third place:
- Priyangika Pitawala, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science “Engineering Semi Crystallinity for Tunable Properties in 3D Printed Photopolymers”
People’s Choice Award:
- Tsz Hung Wong, Mechanical Engineering “Selective-Permeable Hydrogel (SPH) for In-situ Biosensing”
The ceremony highlighted graduate students from across the College of Engineering whose work spans a wide range of engineering disciplines and research areas. Their work advances knowledge within their fields while reflecting the creativity, discipline and communication skills needed to move engineering ideas from the lab into the world.
Read more about the 2026 MSU Engineering 3MT competition and finalists in “MSU Engineering 3MT competition showcases big ideas in just three minutes.”
Written by Austin Witt.
MSU College of Engineering Media and Public Relations page