Brown seniors Jimmy Lee, Ntsika Mtwa, and Eliza Tabachnik have been awarded a scholarship from Tau Beta Pi for their final undergraduate year. The engineering honor society announced the selection of 256 engineering students throughout the country and awarded funds based on the competitive criteria of high scholarship, campus leadership and service, and promise of future contributions to the engineering profession. All scholars are members of the Tau Beta Pi association.
Lee is a chemical engineering concentrator from Seoul, South Korea, and the President of both the Rhode Island Alpha Chapter of Tau Beta Pi and Brown’s chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He represented Brown at the National American Institute of Chemical Engineers Conference in Boston last November, and has been involved in research for Assistant Professor Theresa Raimondo’s lab. Currently working with Professor Robert Hurt’s Laboratory for Environmental and Health Nanoscience, he is working on the development of breathable graphene oxide-based composites to act as environmentally friendly fluorine-free alternatives. Lee has also served as a teaching assistant for several engineering classes, and is an editor of Brown’s Critical Review. He is a volunteer for the Brown Market Shares Program, a student-run, campus-based food distribution program connecting the College Hill community with regional producers through affordable weekly shares of local and sustainable produce, bread, eggs, dairy, and meat.
Mtwa is a mechanical engineering concentrator from Menlo Park, Calif., interested in energy and the environment. He is a research assistant for Professor Mara Freilich, previously investigating dissolved oxygen in the Narragansett Bay, and currently working on modeling the scale decomposition of variance budgets for two coupled ocean tracers. Mtwa is finance chair of Brown’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, for which he attended the annual conference in Baltimore last spring. He is also a member of the club soccer team and a mentor in the Young Entrepreneurs Program, aimed at local high school students.
Tabachnik is a mechanical engineering concentrator from the United Kingdom passionate about the environment. She conducts research with Professor Kenny Breuer into the power efficiency of pitching offshore wind turbines using an Animal Flight and Aeromechanics wind tunnel. She presented her research at the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics Conference in Houston last November where she was listed as author on three projects. Tabachnik has also been awarded an Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award as well as a Research at Brown Grant. Tabachnik has served as a teaching assistant in several engineering classes. She is a leader and steering committee member for Brown Outdoor Leadership Training (BOLT), completing 180+ hours of outdoor education, leadership, and sustainability training to run a five-day backpacking trip in the White Mountains.
Tau Beta Pi is the world’s largest engineering society with more than 656,000 members and 259 collegiate chapters. It was founded in 1885.