Awards

The UNC Charlotte Alumni Association bestowed its 2024 Alumni Awards to six outstanding individuals for their service to their professions, communities and the University Friday, March 1, at the UNC Charlotte Marriott Hotel & Conference Center. 

The honorees included two Niner Engineers who continue to forge the future for students, the university and the broader community.

The William States Lee College of Engineering is leading critical investigations with key research faculty at an increasing rate, as demonstrated by a 25+ percent increase in research funding in the past year ($13,660,952 in 2021-2022 to $17.8M in 2022-2023). Likewise, UNC Charlotte overall is continuing to demonstrate innovation leadership and growth, being ranked fourth in the nation for patents per research dollar.

Team’s design being patented

Qiang Zhu, associate professor of mechanical engineering, leverages informatics, computational research and modeling to advance the understanding of organic materials, directly leading to greater ability to generate clean energy. Zhu earned both an NSF CAREER Award and a Department of Energy Early Career Award which are furthering his studies at William States Lee College of Engineering.

Dr. Jy Wu, Infrastructure and Environmental Systems, was selected to receive the Thomas L. Reynolds Leadership Award for 2022-23. The most recent Graduate Program Excellence Award recipients, originally announced in May, were honored Sept. 20 in a reception held in the Student Union Art Gallery.

UNC Charlotte’s Robotic Mining Team recently won some of the highest national awards for designing and building solutions for real world problems. The team of eight engineering seniors joined 23 other teams from across the nation in late May for the annual competition in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

UNC Charlotte’s Formula SAE team, 49ers Racing, returned this weekend from the SAE International Collegiate competition at Michigan International Speedway, where they placed in the top 10.