BIOE Celebrates Undergraduate Awards

The Fischell Department of Bioengineering (BIOE) honored six student recipients of the annual BIOE departmental awards during the 2022 Maryland Engineering Undergraduate Honors and Awards ceremony on May 4.

Pavan Bhat and Anjali Gajendiran received the BIOE Outstanding Junior Award in recognition of outstanding academic achievement and contributions to the department.

Pavan Bhat is a junior bioengineering student, a Banneker/Key Scholar, and a member of both the QUEST Honors Program and the Integrated Life Sciences Honors College. He is an active member of the University of Maryland iGEM (international Genetically Engineered Machine) team and the Terps Racing Formula Electric (EV) team. He is also a Clark School Ambassador and an Honors Ambassador, and served as the Scholarship Chair for the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honors Society. In the future, Pavan hopes to work in the pharmaceutical industry.

Anjali Anjali Gajendiran is a junior bioengineering and Germanic studies dual-degree student. She is a member of the University Honors Program in the Honors College and the RISE Leadership Academy in the Clark School. Gajendiran has been an undergraduate teaching fellow for Biology for Engineers and Bioengineering Thermodynamics. This past summer, Gajendiran was a student leader for the University of Maryland iGEM team, where she helped lead her team to a gold medal at the iGEM Jamboree for their synthetic biology-based phosphorus recycling project.

Yusuf Mastoor received the Outstanding Senior Award, which recognizes academic achievement and contributions to the profession and the department. He is a member of the Life Sciences Scholars Program and is developing a contractile artery-on-a-chip in the Vascular Kinetics Lab as a part of the Bioengineering Honors Program. Mastoor is an undergraduate teaching fellow for Biofluids, the chief clinical research teaching assistant for Emergency Medicine Research Associates Program at Prince George's Hospital Center, and treasurer of the campus Student Health Advisory Committee. He is a member of the Omicron Delta Kappa Leadership Society and the Alpha Eta Mu Beta Honor Society. After graduation, Mastoor plans to conduct research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) before applying to M.D./Ph.D. programs.

Erik Vaughan received the Outstanding Research Award, which is presented on the basis of significant contributions to research, the department, and the field of bioengineering. He is a senior bioengineering student who has focused much of his research on developing a model of a human lymphatic vessel in BIOE Assistant Professor Katharina Maisel's lab. Recently, Vaughn presented his research at the Society For Biomaterials conference in Baltimore. He is a member of the Gemstone Honors College where he studies gene editing techniques for rare diseases. He is also a site leader with One Tent Health, a D.C.-based nonprofit that provides a range of health services to the community. After graduation, Vaughn will work at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a post-baccalaureate fellow before applying to medical school.

Ezra Cho received the Outstanding Citizen Award, which is presented to an excellent student who has contributed significantly to the community, department, university, and profession. Cho is a senior bioengineering student minoring in statistics with a 4.0 GPA. He is a Banneker/Key Scholar, a member of the Integrated Life Sciences Honors program, and vice president of competitions for the UMD chapter of the Biomedical Engineering Society. Cho has been an undergraduate teaching assistant for the lab component of the Cell Biology and Physiology course for the past four semesters, and worked on the SNPs3DProfile pipeline under Dr. John Moult at the University of Maryland Institute for Bioscience & Biotechnology Research. Cho has been accepted to Boston University for graduate school where he hopes to continue his studies toward a Ph.D.

Elizabeth Kinnard received the Outstanding Leadership Award, which recognizes a student who has shown exemplary leadership within the community, department, university, and profession. Kinnard is a senior bioengineering major in the University Honors program. She has served as an undergraduate teaching fellow for Biology for Engineers, co-founder of the Women in Engineering RISE Summer Research Program, an elementary school math tutor through Maryland Mentor Corps, a First-Year Innovation and Research Experience peer mentor, and co-founder and president of the Maryland Ski Team. After taking a gap year to continue doing tendon research in BIOE Associate Professor Catherine Kuo’s lab, she plans to attend medical school.