I am honored to receive the 2019 IEEE-USA Jim Watson Student Professional Awareness Achievement Award. The Board of Directors selected me "for tireless efforts to bridge the gap between students and professionals by demonstrating the value of continued membership within IEEE."
I was nominated by a member of the student branch who recognized my and other officers' role in increasing the number and quality of events. In particular, I worked hard to reconnect with leaders of the IEEE Houston section, which helped us gain more publicity, support, and function for some of our keynote events, including an annual hackathon, and a career fair geared towards electrical and computer engineering students.
In my first year as Secretary, which was the first year we began hosting the career first and hosted our first 24 hour hardware hackathon, we applied for and won the Outstanding Large Student Branch award for Region 5. I believe our work with the Houston section this year helped us win this award.
In my second year as Secretary, I led an effort for us to take advantage of the IEEE Student Professional Awareness Experience (SPAx) program. I picked speakers of interest, worked with the Region 5 coordinator, and worked out the logistics for coordinating this event. I wanted to center our guest speaker around an event promoting involvement in IEEE after graduation. We called this event "IEEE Excellence Night," and invited faculty who earned the top honor of being an IEEE Fellow to mingle with students, share their experiences, and promote lifelong membership with IEEE.
I am proud of these events and all the events that I helped support during my time as an officer for the Texas A&M Student Branch. I am honored to be chosen for this award, and grateful to Zhiyang Ong from Texas A&M and Chris Sanderson and Moriah Hargrove-Anders from the IEEE Houston Section for supporting my nomination.
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