May 20, 2026
By Tracie Troha

The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering honored 36 graduate students with awards and fellowships. These awards and fellowships recognize exceptional research and teaching contributions during the 2025-26 academic year.

This year also marked the introduction of the Hugh Wellington Fellowship for master’s students. Hugh Wellington, B.S. ME 1982, M.S. ME 1983, established the fellowship after learning that graduate student support is one of the School’s greatest needs to remain competitive. In addition to the fellowship, he supports undergraduate students through a scholarship for those pursuing automation and robotics.

Ph.D. student fellowship and award honorees include:

Beth B. and D. Fort Flowers, Jr. Fellowship

• Milad Azizkhani
• Allison Bateman
• Jungho Choi
• Juntao He
• Rizky Ilhamsyah
• Edouard Machenaud
• Emmanuel Mate-Kole
• Tyler Rome

Honorable Mention Teaching Award

• Lena Moller

James E. Pruitt, Jr. Fellowship

• Madeline Morrell

Paul R. Yopp Memorial Fellowship

• Timothy Brumfiel
• Mingeun Choi
• Shweta Karnik

Sweigert Award for Excellence in Teaching

• Marcellus Boykin
• Eunsik Choi
• Chase Sun

William H. Glenn, Sr. Fellowship

• Carlos Carrasquillo
• Youndo Do
• Akshar Kota
• Darren Lie
• Fukang Liu
• Vidor Lujan
• Pranoy Ray
• Courtney Ream

Master's student fellowship and award honorees include:

Hugh Wellington Fellowship

• Benjamin Beyerle
• Rongming Guo
• Andrew Lenart
• Savannah Luney
• Lucas McCarty
• Angel Mercado
• Rithwik Shankar Raj
• Arthur Rubino
• Sai Saidu
• Joseph Schwalbe
• Chase Sun
• Aayush Surawar
• Aditya Ananda Venkatesh

View a photo gallery from the Ph.D. student awards ceremony     View a photo gallery from the master's student awards ceremony