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Student Kudos:

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The UNL chapter of the National Association of Home Builders won the 2006 Outstanding Student Chapter Award at the NAHB Student Management Competition held Feb. 7-10 in Orlando, Fla. Nearly 170 teams were eligible for the honor. Several members also won individual awards. Senior Nichole Karr of Rolla, Mo., received the Outstanding Student Award. Junior Nick Torgusson of Detroit Lakes, Minn., won the $5,000 National Housing Endowment Scholarship. In addition, UNL’s residential construction team placed fifth out of 33 teams. Charles Berryman, associate professor of construction management, is the chapter adviser. The club’s local and national sponsors are the Home Builders of Lincoln and the Ridgid Tool Company.

Freshman Aaron Fluitt was one of two UNL students named World-Herald Honors Scholars at the 2006 Omaha World-Herald Recognition Dinner in December. Fluitt, a chemical engineering major, is a National Merit Scholar and a graduate of Lincoln East High School. He’s involved in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Chem-E-Car Competition, University Honors Program and Cornhusker Marching Band.

Adriana Trejo won UNL’s 2007 Lowe R. and Mavis M. Folsom Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award. Her thesis addresses the importance of including physicians in the process of designing ergonomically correct laparoscopic surgical tools. Laurie Bellows, director of graduate student professional development, said Trejo’s work was “judged to be the best in terms of importance and originality.” Trejo’s adviser is Susan Hallbeck, professor of industrial and management systems engineering.

Abdallah H. Alkhaleel, a Ph.D. student in industrial and management systems engineering, placed third in the 2006 Student Research Presentation Awards at the 34th Annual North American Manufacturing Research Conference. His paper was titled “Nanoscale Features by Electro-Machining Using Atomic Force Microscope.”

David Bennier, Carissa Gengenbach, Megan Krause, Andrew Lingenfelter, Laura Podany and Issar Yazhbin were selected for the inaugural class of Husker 24. The program is sponsored by the Nebraska Alumni Association to recognize UNL students who best embody the association’s core values: leadership, service, integrity and spirit. The students were honored at a banquet Feb. 16.

Amin Akhnoukh, a civil engineering Ph.D. student, was awarded the American Concrete Institute’s Nebraska Chapter fellowship for the 2007-08 academic year.

Brandon Kreiling is the first graduate student to be inducted into Sigma Lambda Chi’s Chi III Chapter. Sigma Lambda Chi is the international construction honor society.

At the November 2006 meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, two graduate students in architectural engineering won Student Paper Awards. Jonathan Rathsam received first place for his paper “Spatial coverage of reflector panels predicted with and without edge diffraction.” Michelle Vigeant received second place for her paper “Auralization of an orchestra using multichannel and multisource technique.”

Lauren Ronsse, a Ph.D. student in architectural engineering, was awarded a $10,000 grant from the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers. In her current research project, Ronsse is testing differences between normal and hearing-impaired persons in performance and perception under various noise conditions.

A UNL team won second place in the 2006 national Big Beam Contest sponsored by the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute. The team leader was Scott Rosenbaugh, a research assistant with the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility.