The Student Leadership of the Year Award is in recognition for Vignesh Sivaramakrishnan’s outstanding leadership, dedication and service to students and the Department. Vignesh has been a quiet, but important student leader in our department for the past couple of years.

He has served as Undergraduate Student Advising Committee co-chair for the past year and has been a peer mentor for the past two years. He was also the team captain for the U Chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Human Powered Vehicle Challenge Team that competed in Las Vegas in March.

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Vignesh being interviewed by ASME during the ASME Human Powered Vehicle Competition 2017 West, held in March at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, NV.

One teammate said, “He has been the most hardworking, creative, and passionate individual I have ever worked with. Vig puts 110% into everything, and won’t stop until the job is done right.”

University of Utah Mechanical Engineering Human Powered Vehicle 2017 Team (left to right), Travis Pellum, Peter Jorgensen, Tanner Mouritsen, and Vignesh Sivaramakrishnan
Left to right, University of Utah Mechanical Engineering Human Powered Vehicle 2017 Team: Travis Pellum, Peter Jorgensen, Tanner Mouritsen, and Vignesh Sivaramakrishnan

In addition to conducting undergraduate research in the U ME Environmental Fluid Dynamics Lab, Vignesh completed two summer internships at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. This summer he accepted a research internship position at the University of California, Los Angeles, Radiation Oncology Group, working on finite element modeling and control of a soft robot for robotic interventions for cancer patients. His plans are to attend graduate school in Fall 2018.