Download the Nomination Form (MS Word .doc)

The 18th Annual Honors Convocation will be held on Saturday, October 20, 2012 at 11 a.m. Once again, the Founders Award Committee is asking for your assistance in identifying candidates for Rensselaer’s Founders Award of Excellence, the highest honor of the Convocation ceremony.

The Founders Award of Excellence was established in 1994 to honor students who embody qualities of creativity, discovery, leadership, and the values of pride and responsibility at Rensselaer.

The award consists of a special certificate, recognition by faculty, staff, and peers at the Honors Convocation ceremony, and a cash prize.  Approximately 70 wonderful students from the Troy and Hartford campuses – about one percent of our student population – are honored each year as winners of Rensselaer’s Founders Award of Excellence.  We need your assistance to identify the next group.

We are seeking nominations from faculty, staff, and students for the Founders Award of Excellence.

Nominees for the Founders Award of Excellence should demonstrate:

• Strong academic performance. Candidates should be in the top 10% of their respective class.
• Pride and responsibility in all aspects of his or her life at Rensselaer.
• Outstanding leadership skills exhibiting discretion, judgment, and well-rounded regard for the opinions of others.
• Originality and imagination that may be evidenced by the potential to solve problems and possess skills to promote new ideas and theories in his or her field of study.

Successful nominations need to address all areas outlined above. All nominations must have a letter of recommendation from the person submitting the nomination.  Both the Nomination Form and the recommendation letter should be submitted to the appropriate office listed on the Nomination Form.

Eligible nominees must be enrolled in one of the following categories in the Fall Semester of 2012:

• Sophomore
• Junior
• Senior
• Fifth-year Architecture student
• Graduate student (full or part-time)

Students may receive the Founders Award of Excellence only once during their tenure at Rensselaer. Nominators are required to submit supporting documentation with the Nomination Form or ask others to join in endorsing an excellent candidate. A nomination may be supported by more than one nominator.

Founders Award Committee:

Michael Hanna, Committee Chair
Associate Professor of Biology and Associate Dean for Academic Advising, Assessment, and Special Programs

Prabhat Hajela
Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education

Jim Knowlton
Director of Athletics

Kathleen Ruiz
Associate Professor of Arts

Amy Pettengill
Assistant Vice President, Student Experience

For questions regarding the award, please contact committee chair Michael Hanna at hannam@rpi.edu.

2011 Founders Award Winners

SCHOOL OF ARCHETECHTURE (2011)

Sophomore
Paul J. Chan
Yuan Feng

Junior
Shen Li

Senior
Cameron J. Fackler

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING (2011)

Sophomore
Kevin T Lyman

Junior
Alexander J. Angilella
Andreas T. Christensen
Andrew F. Cronin
Anne M. Cropp
Holly M. Dupuis
Xintian Huang
Kevin W. Keating
Daniel A. Lavigne
Eileen M. Lynch
Alexander N. Maskevich
Bryan M. McMahon
Jeffrey A. Mockelman
Stephanie M. Polak
Christina G. Provenza
Grace V. Tilton
Olivia D. vonNieda
Nicholas W. Zaccor

Senior
Branden C. Buckner
Michele L. Bustamante
Eugene Cheng
Brandon L. Graham
Leonard A. Lustrino
Michael J. Lyons
Adtiana A. Rojas
Abigail E. Stein
Corey C. Woodcock

Graduate Student
James D. Brooks
Nicholas G. Cooper
Courtney M. Dumont
Scott G. Ghiocel
Alexey M. Gutin
Lamya Karim
Jaron D. Kuppers
Rebecca A. MacDonald
Sanjeev M. Rao
Jason T. Thompson
Wentao Wu

SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES, ARTS, AND SOCIAL SCIENCES (2011)

Senior
Julia A. Alsarraf
Christopher L. Diorio
Daniel W. Zollman

Graduate Student
Mst Khadija Mitu

LALLY SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY (2011)

Sophomore
Kyle E. Brody

Junior
Tania I. Feliz

Senior
Justin M. Grimm

Graduate Student
Gergana L. Kostova
Daniel E. Murray
Robert P. Rafferty
Yinjie Shen

SCHOOL OF SCIENCE (2011)

Junior
Yazmin E. Feliz
Varun Madiath
Peter J. Mattingly
Jerome A. Schneider
Trevor D. Zettersten

Senior
Peter L. Hajas
Kevin Li
Madelyn E. May
Thomas C. O'Connor

Graduate Student
Victor J. Barranca
Ruchira Chatterjee
Chun Ju Chen
Eric A. Rozell

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND WEB SCIENCE (2011)

Senior
Joseph W. Dougherty
Andrew B. Karnani

Graduate Student
Kristin T. Shumway
Ankit N. Srivastava
Han Wang

2010 Founders Award Winners

School of Architecture (2010)

Kyle H. Baumgardner
Julia E. Grabazs
Kate A. Lisi
Elliot S. Mistur
Caressa Siu
Julie L. Solomon
Lauren E. Thomsen

School of Engineering (2010)

Jessica Alvarado
Gavin T. Anaya
Samantha C. Beaulac
Bryan P. Carmody
Burak Cavdaroglu
Jin Chen
Patrick M. Cloke
Benjamin I. Cohen
Rachel L. Ferebee
Justine A. Fortier
Megan E. Gallagher
William T. Gathright
Casey J. Hoffman
Allison L. Keefe
Vivian K. Lee
Yuhuan Liang
Kristen M. Ligotti
Chenxiao Lou
Jacob T. Martin
Alexandra L. McGregor
Michael S. Nickerson
Andrea Nordberg
Sarah G. Nurre
Michael J. Pawlak
Gregory M. Pitner
Andrew D. Pye
Kelsey L. Saulnier
Jonathan J. Sevilla
Leslie R. Vorce
Vicki Wu
Zijie Yan
Walter C. Yund
Noah M. Zenker

HASS (2010)

Michelle E. Cullum
Anasha B. Cummings
Anna Lamprou
Natt Phenjati
William N. Schnapp
Nathan T. Stedman
Ashley M. Weber
Logan Dawn April Williams

School of Management (2010)

Yiwei Fang
Laura Gersten
LiuLing Liu
Eric C. Peterson
Kevin T. Sullivan

School of Science (2010)

Adam H. Comella
Michael C. Freid
Pamela B. Fuller
Elsa J. Gonsiorowski
Ming He
Gurpreet Kaur
Sean C. Kim
Allen B. Lavoie
Andrew E. McAllister
Kara G. McMahon
Yonatan Naamad
Amanda l. Olyha
Luke A. Perkins
Daniel M. Ploch
Seemanti Ramanath
Laura L. Rosenkrantz

Information Technology & Web Science (2010)

Rebecca E. Camara
Gino Lorenzo Gervasio
Yanan Li
Angela M. Panfil
Nathalie Neptune

2009 Founders Award Winners

School of Architecture (2009)

Kendall L. Baldwin
Jillian M. Crandall
Tyler W. Hopf
Courtney A. Laflin

School of Engineering (2009)

Sarah A. Bach
Akhilesh Banerjee
Matthew D. Belley
Danielle R. Bogdanowicz
Elizabeth L. Brule
John G. Cannarella
Kathryn P. Celentano
Yuting Chen
Subrahmanya S. Chivukula
Benjamin W. Clough
Cory M. Crean
Abigail N. Eldridge
Erik J. Fast
Alexander T. Field
Sean P. Fleury
Amanda N. Gill
Robert M. Graham
Garrett L. Harms
Joseph Hersey
Norman B. Holcombe
Sean M. Kelley
Tristan J. Lawry
Sarah E. Linley
Jeffrey Litt
David A. McAvoy
William J. McCormick
Karl J. Meyer
Faith M. Michael
Srijit Mukherjee
Thomas C. Orgler
Mohammad Poursina
Peter R. Russo
Jayesh K. Shinde
Micki J. Sundheim
Shahreen S. Virjee
David I. Walsh

HASS (2009)

Gretchen M. Blatt
Maureen A. Danskin
Nathan W. Fisk
Aalok Khandekar
Whitney Kukol
Stephanie J. La Berge
Kyle C. I. McDonald
Kyle M. Monahan
Sarah T. Parks
Hillary L. Savoie
Brendan B. Toupin
Shailaja Valdiya

School of Management (2009)

Brian J. Clark
David M. Crolius
Sujalkumar F. Desai
Nicole M. Leber
Atif A. Majeed
James Y. Ohnoki
Megan N. Reile
Qiang Wu

School of Science (2009)

Kevin A. del Bene
Anjan Devaraj
Daniel C. Elton
Robert Escriva
Natasha A. Fedan
Dennis Goldfarb
Robert E. Lemanis
Daniel Li
Jingle Liu
Xiaofei Lu
Zachariah Norman
Ya Ou
Joseph E. Paki
Evan W. Patton
Neena K. Pyzocha
Oswaldo A. Sanchez
Andrew D. Zonenberg

Information Technology & Web Science (2009)

Selcuk Atli
Anson Byun
Darren J. Linkstrom

2008 Founders Award Winners

School of Architecture (2008)

Jason A. Bean
Vivian M. Bratone
Ann T. Cosgrove
Kristin M. Diotte
Jesse W. Embley
David Holbrook
David A. Stasiuk

School of Engineering (2008)

Cuyler N. Bates
Bryan P. Bednarz
Brian J. Belley
Timothy G. Harren-Lewis
Timothy H. Heiman
Bryan R. Herman
Shankar Kar
Alyssa V. Kowcz
Sara E. Laprade
Christina M. Laskowski
Jose R. Lebron-Bosques
Eric J. Lundberg
Bernard A. Malouin
Elizabeth J. Martin
Luri R. Middleton
Richard A. Mooney
Ruth I. Murrugarra
Andrew W. Neidhardt
Jonathan E. Proule
Dimitre R. Simeonov
Eric E. Taub
Sheilla N. Torres-Nieves
Susan M. Ventre
Michelle M. Woeste
Samantha L. Wozniak
Timothy J. Zakriski
Zhi Zhou

HASS (2008)

Kara N. Chesal
Whitney A. Coleman

School of Management (2008)

David M. Crolius
Cullen C. Kasunic
Rachel R. McCracken
John P. Rekstad
Zenu Sharma

School of Science (2008)

Jennifer E. Doering
Tuesday Fisher
Churamani Gaire
Riley Gannon
Daniel J. Hathaway
I-Chen Ho
Jessica L. Jones
Michelle L. Kloc
Tom Kujala
Kai Liu
Qiming Lu
Heather Palmeri
Michael J. Perry
Tyler Poore
Jonathan Rankin
Erika Sadeghi
Kaleena L. Shirley
Ashley L. Thomas
Stephen B. Thomas
Dustin Trail
Georgia C. Yalanis
Yuehua Yu

Information Technology & Web Science (2008)

Jonathan C. Babiec
Matthew J. Grill
Yizenia Mora
Travis S. Reid
Sanchay Subhedar