ME Graduate Student Wins Competitive Campus GRID Award

Mechanical Engineering graduate student Arun Kota.

Mechanical Engineering graduate student Arun Kota earned the Award of Excellence in the Mechanics, Modeling, and Predictions category at the Graduate Research Interaction Day (GRID) on April 12 in the Stamp Student Union at Maryland. His research in a "Combinatorial Approach to Develop and Characterize Multifunctional Polymer Nanocomposites" was judged to offer the best approach to diverse practical problems in the category at the competition. The judging panel consisted of members of Maryland's Graduate School, Office of Research, Office of the Provost and the Graduate Student Government. GRID is conducted as a one-day inter-disciplinary and inter-program symposium consisting of both poster and oral presentations for all UMCP graduate students. Kota is from a town called Visakhapatnam in Southern India. Kota is advised by Associate Professor Hugh Bruck, also working closely with Associate Professor David Bigio. Kota was also recently awarded a travel grant from the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) to present a portion of his Ph.D. research on at the SPE Annual Technical Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio in early May.

Published April 26, 2007