The Gallogly College of Engineering Board of Advisors recognized four individuals at its November meeting with board chair Mark Welch, a 1992 industrial engineering alumni, presiding. The awards, traditionally presented during the Felgar Society Gala, were presented virtually this year. They are among the highest recognitions given by the college.
In 2015, Gallogly College Pursuit of Excellence Awards were created to honor those who have regularly and unselfishly served the college. Each year, an outstanding member of the college’s faculty, staff and students receive a certificate of distinction and a cash award of $2,000.
Undergraduate Pursuit of Excellence Award
The Undergraduate Pursuit of Excellence Award was presented to senior Meghana Fathepure in the OU School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. Fathepure, who hails from Stillwater, Oklahoma, joined OU after graduating from the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics. In addition to excelling in the classroom, she is involved in several research projects. As part of the research team at the Unmanned Systems Research Institute in Stillwater, Oklahoma, she developed an inflatable winged aircraft for the exploration of one of Saturn’s moons and worked on the use of solar cells to obtain data at high altitudes of the atmosphere. At the Center of Autonomous Sensing and Sampling, she helped develop unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for weather sensing and atmospheric sampling. She works with the team at the Center for Sustainable Energy and Carbon Management on the development of UAV energy storage methods using fuel cells. She is president of Sigma Gamma Tau, the National Honor Society of Aerospace Engineers. With two classmates, she helped found the OU chapter of Women in Aeronautics and Astronautics, for which she is serving as the vice president.
Staff Pursuit of Excellence Award
Billy Mays received the Staff Pursuit of Excellence Award. In 1996, he joined the OU School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering as a machinist. His nomination reads: “Mr. Mays has been instrumental in the successful operation of the AME Machine Shop and provides assistance to teaching laboratories, capstone projects, student competition teams and experimental research projects of faculty members. He maintains an excellent shop safety record considering the number of young adults he trains and oversees. He tirelessly devotes hours of his personal time to ensure student and faculty success. With a strong technical background, he provides cost-effective solutions for design and fabrication of parts and set-ups. He received the Distinguished Service Award in 1999 and the Distinguished Performance Award in 2018 from the Hourly Employees Council. He continues to be an asset for AME and the college, helping us with our teaching and research missions.”
Graduate Pursuit of Excellence Award
The Graduate Pursuit of Excellence Award was presented to Aditya Narasimhan in the School of Computer Science. His nomination letter read: “Mr. Narasimhan is one of the best teaching assistants as attested by his professors. Students take classes because they know he will be the teaching assistant. He is always there to help students and is known for his patience. More importantly, he is known for his contributions to student groups that include the International Student Advisory Committee, Graduate Senate, school committees and more. He also provided extensive support for computer science faculty during the pandemic, providing seminars on advanced functionality of Canvas, OU’s learning management system. He dedicates whatever time is left to work on CodeSooner, a program that provides computer science and data science courses to high schools in Oklahoma.” Narasimhan hails from Chennai, India.
Faculty Pursuit of Excellence Award
The Faculty Pursuit of Excellence Award went to Presidential Professor Deborah Trytten, PhD, in the OU School of Computer Science. Her nomination read: “Dr. Trytten has been the outstanding teacher in the School of Computer Science since she joined the faculty in 1992. She has received almost all the teaching awards at OU including the Regents Award for Superior Teaching. She is a recipient of many research grants from the National Science Foundation for her research in Engineering Education. Recently, her research grant titled “CS Includes” from the National Science Foundation embarks on an amazing journey to increase Native American student graduates in computer science.”
The Pursuit of Excellence Awards are made possible by generous donors to the J.H. Felgar Society. To help support key initiatives and programs across the college or to learn more about giving opportunities, email tsowers@ou.edu or visit https://www.ou.edu/coe/give
