
Sandra Hines
Sr. Director of Leadership Engagement
College of Engineering
Dean's Office
(734) 647-5381
3214 SI-North
Awards

Michigan Engineering has established a recognition program to honor those alumni who personify the College’s tradition of excellence. There are four categories of awards presented annually during our homecoming celebration.
ALUMNI MEDAL AWARD
Presented to one alumnus/a who has shown extraordinary achievement in their field and brought distinction to Michigan Engineering. It is the highest accolade awarded by the Michigan Engineering Alumni Board.
Nominate an alum for the Alumni Medal.
The nominations portal will be open January – April 2020
DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI SERVICE AWARD
Presented to one alumnus/a who has generously volunteered service to further College projects and activities.
Nominate an alum for the Distinguished Alumni Service Award.
The nominations portal will be open January – April 2020
OUTSTANDING RECENT ALUMNI AWARD
Recognizing the meritorious contributions by an alum in the early stages of their career. Recipients have either graduated from Michigan Engineering within the last ten years or are no more than 35 years old. Recipients are selected based on their demonstrated leadership skills, professional contribution, and service to the community or Michigan Engineering.
Nominate an alum for the Outstanding Recent Alumni Award.
The nominations portal opens January-April 2020
DEPARTMENT MERIT AWARDS
Recognizing distinction at the department level, one award is presented from each academic department. Send an email directly to your Department Chair for consideration.
Alumni Award, Honorees
2019 Alumni Medal: Nicolaos Alexopoulos
For five decades, Dr. Nicolaos G. Alexopoulos has been a leader in academic administration, electrical engineering research, and engineering outreach. Under his 11 years of leadership as UC-Irvine’s dean of engineering, the school more than doubled enrollment and faculty, and nearly tripled research expenditures. He helped establish the National Fuel Cell Research Center, Integrated Nanosystems Research Facility, Center for Engineering Science in Design, Biomedical Engineering department and the first-named school on campus. Recently, the school and donors created the Nicolaos G. and Sue Curtis Alexopoulos Presidential Endowed Chair. Previously, during nearly 30 years at UCLA, as EE department chair he established the nation’s first High-Frequency Electronics Research Center with a $3 million gift from Hewlett Packard. He has served as editor-in-chief of Electromagnetics and authored more than 270 journal and conference papers. Ten of his journal publications have been published in volumes of the most significant contributions in the field. He and his students have received three Best Paper Awards from IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation. He is the former principal investigator of two STEM programs focused on underrepresented students in California. Since 2008, he has served as a vice president at Broadcom Corporation, and more recently, the Broadcom Foundation. Dr. Alexopoulos was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2007 for “contributions to microwave circuits, antennas, and structures for low observable technologies, and for contributions in engineering education.” Read more.
2019 Distinguished Alumni Service Award: Karen Schreiber Fireman
Karen heads the external advisory board of the $100M Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS). For several years, Ms. Fireman served as a Michigan EngineeringAlumni Board member and was vice-chairman of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Council. She has sat on investment boards of several charitable endowments and has provided financial advice to multinational institutions. She has been an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins, and a teaching assistant at the University of Michigan. Ms. Fireman is a chartered financial analyst whose c-suite resume includes chief technology officer of ManTechCyber, the chief financial officer of Columbus Properties, and chief compliance officer of Columbia Partners. Currently, she is a principal at Fireman & Associates. She lives in Houston with her husband, also a Michigan Engineer. Read more.
View previous Distinguished Alumni Service Award recipients.
2019 Outstanding Recent Alumni Award: Kelley Maynard Elahi
In only eight years, Kelley Maynard Elahi has established herself as an accomplished leader in global health. As a design engineer in Vietnam, Ms. Elahi developed a continuous positive air pressure device and a phototherapy device for newborn care. She helped set up 11 neonatal wards with such equipment in Vietnam, Myanmar, the Philippines, and India. At the Rice 360 Institute in Houston, she led a team of engineers developing multiple global health technologies and represented the institute at the World Health Organization in Switzerland. Witnessing dire circumstances in hospitals inspired her to combine nursing training with her engineering background to provide more comprehensive care and bridge the two fields. Presently, she is a registered nurse at the prestigious Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Read more.
2019 Department Merit Awardees top
Aerospace Engineering
Sanjay Correa
Vice President, GE Aviation-Retired
Biomedical Engineering
Jon Rowley
Founder and Chief Product Officer, RoosterBio Inc.
Chemical Engineering
Stephen Hart
Regional Director and Global VP, Exxon Mobil – retired
Civil & Environmental Engineering
Bruce Dorfman
Senior Managing Director, Trammell Crow Residential
Climate & Space Sciences Engineering
Mei-Ching Fok
Research Space Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Computer Science & Engineering
Smita Krishnaswamy
Assistant Professor, Yale University
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Dawson Yee
Principal Engineer, Microsoft Corp.
Industrial and Operations Engineering
Craig Russell
Managing Director, Goldman Sachs
Integrative Systems + Design
Mohammad Fatouraie
Engineering Manager, Robert Bosch
Materials Science and Engineering
James Yurko
Director of Product Design, Materials Engineering – Apple
Mechanical Engineering
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