Four LSU Engineering Students Win Clayton Engineering Awards

April 9, 2014 | LSU Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering

Four LSU College of Engineering students received the 2013-2014 Donald W. Clayton Engineering Excellence Award for their success in and out of the classroom.

Evan Terrell and Jace Courville received the Clayton Engineering Excellence Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Students. Samuel O. Irving and Aaron Harrington received the Clayton Engineering Excellence Award for Outstanding Graduate Students.

Courville, computer science senior, has maintained a 3.79 GPA while being involved in the LSU Air Force ROTC program. Courville is an AFROTC cadet leader and also ranked in the top 15 percent of all AFROTC engineering seniors nationwide. He served as president of the Arnold Air Society and is a member of the LSU Corp of Cadets. An undergraduate researcher, Courville studies android-based mobile memory. He hopes to pursue a route in academia and earn a doctorate in computer science.

Terrell, a mechanical engineering senior, with a minor in mathematics, conducts lab experiments as an undergraduate research assistant, creating 3-D computer models and 3-D printed plastic models. Terrell also serves as a group leader for FOCUS, LSU Honors College’s two-week program for high school students in under-resourced Baton Rouge area public schools. He has served FOCUS as a science workshop director, college student leader recruitment director and general director for the program organization. Terrell hopes to research alternative fuel and green energy sources, specifically catalytic and thermal tar cracking for developments in biomass gasification while pursuing a graduate degree.

Harrington is earning his doctorate degree in chemical engineering and a minor in petroleum engineering while researching simulations in in-situ upgrading and conversion process of shale oil formations, and mechanisms of heat reflux and condensation in the formation wellbore. Harrington earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Florida. He currently serves as president of the Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Association and wants to live a life revolved around study and discovery.

Irving holds a 4.0 GPA while studying electrical engineering in the LSU Ph.D. program. Irving earned a bachelor’s degree in both electrical engineering and computer science from LSU. He is a graduate research assistant for Dr. Lu Peng from the LSU Division of Electrical and Computer Engineering, where he studies improving bandwidth usage and cache management. Irving simultaneously works for the Louisiana Alliance for Simulation-Guided Materials Applications as a graduate research assistant. There he develops GPU-accelerated Quantum Monte Carlo algorithms to be used for efficiency cluster solving. Irving has recently had a publication accepted by the International Symposium on Computer Architecture, and was a graduate assistant for LSU Parking and Transportation Services, where he improved GIS data used for a campus map.

The Donald W. Clayton Engineering Excellence Award is granted each year to an outstanding undergraduate student(s) who exhibits extraordinary character, scholastic achievement and evident leadership in the College of Engineering. Faculty, students and staff nominate commendable students. The award entails a stipend of $5,000 and a commemorative plaque.

The Clayton Engineering Excellence Award for Outstanding Graduate Student is granted each year to an outstanding graduate student(s) who exhibits extraordinary character, scholastic achievement and evident leadership in the College of Engineering. This award entails a stipend of $10,000 to the recipient and a $2,000 stipend to the graduate student’s principal advisor/faculty member.

Donald W. Clayton (BS PETE, 1959) was inducted into the College of Engineering Hall of Distinction in 1993. He and Gloria Pichon Clayton founded the awards in 2004 with a generous donation.

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Article by Danielle Kelley, LSU College of Engineering communications intern. For more information, contact Mimi LaValle, 225-578-5706, mlavall@lsu.edu.