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 California
State University, Fresno engineering graduate Christopher M. Abela of
Santa Maria is one of 37 scholars in the nation’s universities selected
by the national engineering honors society Tau Beta Pi for a fellowship
to pursue his graduate studies.
More than 200 individuals applied to be a Tau Beta Pi fellow. Of the 37
selected, Abela and 16 others will receive a $10,000 cash stipend for
one year of graduate study. The other recipients will have extensive
financial aid for their year of advanced work.
The society also awarded $2,000 scholarships to Fresno State students
Julianto Susanto of Indonesia and Kimberly Hudson of Fresno, both civil
engineering majors, for their senior year of studies. The two were among
135 engineering scholars chosen from the 293 who applied.
Abela will pursue his graduate work in structural engineering at Fresno
State. His two-year program will culminate in a thesis project examining
the use of carbon wrap around bridge supports to maintain their
structural integrity during an earthquake.
Susanto works as an intern for Dutcher and Associates Consulting
Structural Engineers in Fresno and volunteers spare time with University
HOPE, which builds houses for low-income, first-time homeowners, and
Vintage Days, the annual campus spring celebration.
Hudson, a member of the Smittcamp Family Honors College at Fresno State,
is active in the Tau Beta Pi campus chapter, was a founding member of
Alpha Phi Epsilon Civil Engineering Honors Society and was Engineering’s
student government senator.
Tau Beta Pi, founded at Lehigh University in 1885 to recognize “students
of distinguished scholarship and exemplary character,” is the nation's
second-oldest honor society. To be invited into membership,
undergraduate engineering students must be in the top eighth of their
junior class or the top fifth of their senior class. |
