Jim McAuley Award Recipient Announced

Written by: Ben Samples

Texas Tech University’s College of Engineering Dean’s Council honored Dana Rosenbladt, a mechanical engineering major from Mandeville, La., with the Jim McAuley Distinguished Engineering Student Award.

The award recognizes the most outstanding graduating Texas Tech engineering student. The recipient is selected from all engineering students who have maintained a minimum grade-point average (GPA) of 3.0 and will graduate in 2007. Applicants are judged based upon extracurricular and leadership activities, academic achievement and work experience.

Rosenbladt has been on Texas Tech’s President List, honoring students with a 4.0 GPA, for each of her nine semesters at the university. She was a student assistant in the Texas Tech Nano Center, where her research included analyzing surfaces at the nano level – an extremely small scale – with mathematical equations. Her research contributed to the publication of an article she co-authored in the Journal of Applied Physics.

As a member of the Texas Tech track team, Rosenbladt was named NCAA Woman of the Year in 2006 and received the Margaret Wilson Academic Achievement Award, for the highest GPA of all female student athletes at Texas Tech. She was part of the Academic All-Big 12 for three years and was named the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-Academic team in 2006. She is also the treasurer of Women in Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Technology, a member of Engineers without Borders and Tau Beta Pi, and is the secretary of Pi Tau Sigma – the mechanical engineering honorary fraternity.

Rosenbladt plans to earn her master’s degree in mechanical engineering, followed by her doctoral studies. Her goal is to contribute to the solution of challenges facing the world in the realm of energy conservation, sustainability and self-sufficiency.

The award is named in memory of James A. "Jim" McAuley, who died in September 2000. McAuley was an educator, a Distinguished Engineer Award recipient and an active member of the Dean’s Council.

CONTACT: Sharon Smith, communications coordinator, College of Engineering, Texas Tech University (806) 742-3451 or Sharon.smith@ttu.edu