Honors and Awards 2024

Core Faculty

James Antaki

Awarded Canaan Family Award for Excellence in Academic Advising—In Honor of Prof. Bingham Cady, Cornell Engineering. 

Shivaun Archer

Awarded 2024 Teaching Award, American Society for Engineering Education; appointed Meinig School director of undergraduate studies.

Lawrence Bonassar 

Awarded 2024 Marshall R Urist, MD Award, Orthopaedic Research Society; SPROUT Award, Cornell Engineering.

Jonathan Butcher

Awarded EPICC award, Cornell Engineering. 

Benjamin Cosgrove

Awarded Sonny Yau ‘72 College of Engineering Teaching Award, Cornell Engineering. 

Claudia Fischbach-Teschl

Appointed James M. and Marsha McCormick Director of Biomedical Engineering, Meinig School. 

Shaoyi Jiang

Elected fellow, National Academy of Inventors; James McCormick Family Advising Award, Cornell Engineering.

Jan Lammerding 

Awarded EPICC Award, Cornell Engineering; “International Networks of Excellence” award, Leducq Foundation; appointed Meinig School associate director.

Esak Lee 

Awarded 2024 NSF CAREER Award.

Karl Lewis 

Awarded Dempster Rising Star Award, International Society of Bone Morphometry.

Nozomi Nishimura 

Inducted 2024 Fellow, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Marjolein van der Meulen 

Selected 2024 fellow, Orthopaedic Research Society; awarded H. R. Lissner Medal, American Society of Mechanical Engineers; named associate vice provost for research and innovation, Office of the Vice President for Research & Innovation.

Krystyn Van Vliet

Named 2024 trailblazer in higher education, City & State New York.

Yi Wang

Elected 2024 Gold Medal Award, International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

Students

Graduate Students

Ashley Cardenas (Bonassar Lab) awarded TL1 fellowship, Weill Cornell Medicine clinical and translational science center; 2024 development award, Roosterbio. 

Cátia Dombaxe (Yadong Wang Lab) Gilliam Fellowship, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Exemplary Leadership Award: Advanced Career Graduate Students, Cornell’s Diversity Programs in Engineering; finalist, Cornell University Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition.

Aiyana Fortin (Bonassar Lab), accepted, WE Cornell program for Women Entrepreneurs; accepted, Cornell’s Life Sciences Technology Innovation Fellows program; finalist, 2024 SB3C Student Paper Competition; runner-up Ph.D. student paper competition, 2024 Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering & Biotransport Conference.

Clara Liao (Kwan Lab) 3rd place @SciPolNetwork science policy pitch competition.

Serafina Lopez (Bonassar Lab) first place, Orthopaedic Research Society Meniscus Section Poster Competition for poster: “Aggrecan siRNA Treatment Improves Collagen Fiber Formation in Tissue Engineered Meniscus.”

Shola Onissema-Karimu (Fischbach-Teschl Lab) Robert Mozia Graduate Distinguished Service award, Cornell’s Diversity Programs in Engineering.

Nicole Sempertegui (Fischbach-Teschl Lab) travel award to attend the 14th International Conference on the Chemistry and Biology of Mineralized Tissue in Oosterbeek, The Netherlands.

Ruben Trujillo (Putnam Lab) and Warrick Ma (Yadong Wang Lab) each awarded Ignite Innovation Acceleration grants from Cornell’s Center for Technology Licensing (CTL).

Undergraduate Students

Isha Arora 2024 National Science Foundation (NSF) fellowship.

Antranig Baghdassarian (with Team Current Care at NYC Health Hackathon) won Grand Prize and $3000 for their device to prevent pressure ulcers through electrical muscle stimulation. 

Eliz Celik 2024 Kessler Fellow.

Nuri Hong 2024 Optica Women Scholar.

Jonathan Indajang 2024 Trainee Professional Development Award, Society for Neuroscience.

Angela Altamirano and Genevieve Wager, with their CornellDebut leads team, named one of three Cornell project teams to receive sponsorship from Cornell Engineering Alumni Association.

Ruchira Hariharan, Ariella Avigad, Francesca Azzarito, Nathan Palamuttam, Kendal Phinney, Aiko Shibata, Viviana Esquivel and Sophia Hertel, advised by professor Jim Antaki, won the Healthcare Technologies for Low-Resource Settings Prize ($15,000) in the 2024 DEBUT Challenge for their NanoLIST design for a rapid, low-cost lead-testing kit.

Alumni

Rebecca Irwin (Ph.D. ’20) hired assistant professor at University of Rochester, starting in July 2025. 

Emily Laurilliard (Ph.D. ’24) named a 2024-26 NYS Science Policy Fellow, Rockefeller Institute of Government.

Heather Lukas (B.S. ’19) awarded 2024 Caltech Demetriades - Tsafka - Kokkalis Prize in entrepreneurship. 

Rashmi Rajshekhar (M.Eng. ’15) 2023 teaching fellow, Knowles Teacher Initiative.

Fei Xia (Ph.D. ’21) hired assistant professor, University of California, Irvine, starting 2025.

2024 Animal Health Hackathon Wins

M.Eng. students Ana Grandgeorge, Sunita Devichira Hariharan, with their team QuickStitch, won Most Novel & Innovative Animal Health Solution and $3000 for their suture replacer, inspired by existing solutions in human medicine. 

M.Eng. students Angelique Miane, Yaa Achampong, with their team Fem 5, won Most Market Ready and $3000, for their method detecting subclinical mastitis with electrical conductivity.

Ph.D. student Subash Bhandari with his team ZERO, won Most Relevant & Impactful Animal Health Solution and $3000 for developing AI-driven onsite point of care diagnostic for common pathogens.

McCormick ’69, M.Eng. ’70, Earns Engineering’s Highest Alumni Honor

James McCormick ’69, M.Eng. ’70, an influential business leader, philanthropist and longtime supporter of education initiatives at Cornell and nationally, including supporting the development of the Meinig School, received the Cornell Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award during a celebration event on March 7 in Duffield Hall.