One of mechanical engineering’s brightest and most involved students, Jeppesen Feliciano B.S.’17, has been selected to receive the College of Engineering’s Outstanding Graduating Student Leader Award. As the outstanding graduating student, he has been asked to provide the College of Engineering student address during convocation on May 5, 2017 at 2:00 pm in the Jon Huntsman Center.
Along with his significant coursework and research activities, Feliciano has been the co-chair of our Undergraduate Student Advisory Committee, where he helped lead a relatively large group of committee members in fulfilling Retention, Promotion and Tenure responsibilities, and planning student events such as a student resource info session, a welcome to mechanical engineering barbecue, research-related brown bag luncheons, a faculty research expo, a student town hall event to provide feedback to the department, and a colloquium of undergraduate research opportunities.
Additionally, Feliciano has served as a peer mentor, helping guide new mechanical engineering majors during their adjustment to the University of Utah and/or the major. He has served as a University of Utah campus life mentor and is currently the Public Relations Chair for Tau Beta Pi, which is an engineering honor society. And finally, he helped found, and is currently the secretary, of the Utah Swimming Club. Impressive!
When asked what attracted him to mechanical engineering, Feliciano, a Utah native says, “My path to ME started as a preschooler when my dad introduced me to the Hill Aerospace Museum. Planes plus swimming made fluids intriguing – go figure – but I wouldn’t officially learn about Bernoulli’s principle (stating that an increase in the speed of a fluid occurs simultaneously with a decrease in pressure or a decrease in the fluid’s potential energy), until AP Physics.” He added that, “I chose the U because it was affordable and had a competitive engineering program. Thanks to ME, I’ve begun to quantify the science behind the airplanes and fluids that hooked me in the first place. In a sense, ME has shed light into “the black box” only to reveal much more.”
Mechanical engineering professor Eric Pardyjak said, “At this point in his academic career, Jeppesen rates very highly amongst our successful students in terms of technical competence, motivation, initiative, and communication skills. I would rank him in our top 5% without hesitation.” We look forward to hearing Feliciano’s student address during the May 5, University of Utah College of Engineering convocation.