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.
![ASME_interview_photo 300x200](https://www.mech.utah.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ASME_interview_photo-300x200-1-300x168.jpg)
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](https://www.mech.utah.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/HPV-2017-Team-300x200.jpg)
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.