Mechanical engineering students, faculty win awards at ASEE conference

March 23, 2023 - by Kim Delker

Students and faculty from the UNM Department of Mechanical Engineering attended the ASEE Gulf-Southwest (GSW) Section conference March 15-17 in Denton, Texas, hosted by the University of North Texas, and several came away with awards.

Tariq Khraishi, professor of mechanical engineering, undergraduate student Joseph Erwin and graduate student Luo Li were in attendance.

UNM winners were:

  • Nathan Jackson, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, who won the ASEE Gulf-Southwest Section’s Outstanding Young Faculty Award.
  • Joseph Erwin, who won first place in the undergraduate student paper awards competition for “Elastic-Plastic Behavior of Threaded Fasteners Under Multi-Axial Loads,” which was co-authored by Khraishi and Laith Alqawasmi.
  • UNM also won the “Person-Mile Award,” which is given to the university or college who sent the conference the most attendees and traveled the furthest to get to the conference site.

UNM Community Engagement Center staff member Akila Ravichandran presented a paper co-authored with Khraishi and Kiran Katira, director of the Community Engagement Center.

Winners at the conference were pleased with what they gained.

“As an academic our first priority is education, so being recognized by my peers at the ASEE-GSW for my efforts to enhance engineering education is truly an honor,” Jackson said.

Erwin, a student winner, said the experience of attending — as well as winning — was time well-spent.

“The ASEE Gulf Southwest 2023 was my first engineering conference, so I was surprised and encouraged to come home with a first-place ranking,” Erwin said. “In addition to my unexpected honor, I was thankful for the chance to present my research in a professional setting.”