Awards and Honors 2026

Faculty

  • James Antaki

    SPROUT Award, Cornell Duffield Engineering

  • Lawrence Bonassar

    2026-27 Center for Advanced Technology (CAT) grant, Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology and Innovation (NYSTAR) in partnership with Fesarius Therapeutics

  • Jonathan Butcher

    SPROUT Award, Cornell Duffield Engineering

    Kaplan Family Distinguished Faculty Fellowship, David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement

  • Ilana Brito

    2026 Multidisciplinary Seed Grant, Cornell Center for Immunology

  • Nate Cira

    Research Excellence Award, Cornell Duffield Engineering

  • Iwijn De Vlaminck

    SPROUT Award, Cornell Duffield Engineering

    MERIT Award, National Institutes of Health

  • Shaoyi Jiang

    2026 Multidisciplinary Seed Grants, Cornell Center for Immunology

  • Alex Kwan

    Research Excellence Award, Cornell Duffield Engineering

  • Jan Lammerding

    SPROUT Award, Cornell Duffield Engineering

  • Karl Lewis

    SPROUT Award, Cornell Duffield Engineering

  • Suelia De Siqueira Rodrigues Fleury Rosa

    Featured cover article, Inside Chapel Magazine

  • Chris Schaffer

    Elected dean of faculty, Cornell University (3-yr term starts July 1)

  • Alexandra Werth

     

    2024-2025 Innovative Teaching & Learning grant, Cornell Center for Teaching Innovation (CTI)

    2026 Global Hubs Seed Grant, Global Cornell

  • Kayla Wolf

    Affinito-Stewart Grant, President’s Council of Cornell Women.

Faculty Promotions

Postdoctoral Researchers

  • Lingxiao Shao (Kwan Lab)

    Gruber International Research Award, Society for Neuroscience

  • Julien Morival (Lammerding Lab)

    Selected, 2025 Rising Stars in Engineering in Health.

  • Irina Kopyeva (Fischbach Lab)

    Awarded  Clinical and Translational Science Center grant, Weill Cornell Medicine.

Students

Undergraduates

  • Antranig Baghdassarian ‘27

    2026 Jiang Fellow, Entrepreneurship at Cornell

  • Nathan Briard ’28

    2026 summer research grant, Cornell Duffield Engineering Office of Inclusive Excellence

  • Lauren Holt ’26

    Ivy League Single-Season Home Run Record, Cornell softball

  • Hannah Kersten ’28

    2026 summer research grant, Cornell Duffield Engineering Office of Inclusive Excellence

  • Ryan Lyppens ’26

    Merrill Presidential Scholar, Cornell University

  • Anisha Roy ’27

    Jiang Fellow, Entrepreneurship at Cornell

  • Emma Weiss ’26

    Undergraduate Distinguish service award, Cornell Duffield Engineering Office of Inclusive Excellence

Graduate Students

  • Subash Bhandari (Xu & Rudd Labs)

    Second place, Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, Cornell Graduate School

  • Alexander Cruz (Butcher Lab)

    Graduate student of the year award, Cornell Duffield Engineering Office of Inclusive Excellence

  • Cátia P. Dombaxe (Yadong Wang Lab)

    Inducted, Bouchet Honor Society

  • Rena Fukuda (Cira Lab)

    Graduate excellence in mentoring award, Cornell Duffield Engineering Office of Inclusive Excellence

  • Lauren Howe-Meagher, M.Eng. ’26

    Selected, Ph.D. Research Fellow, University of Oslo StraDiVarious Doctoral Network European Union Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

  • AMINAT Ibrahim (Butcher Lab)

    People’s Choice Award, Cornell Graduate School Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition

    Exemplary Leadership and Service Award for Advanced Career Graduate Students, Cornell Graduate School Office of Inclusion and Student Engagement

    Global Citizen Award, Cornell Office of Global Learning

    Selected Cornell representative, AAAS CASE Workshop and Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C.

    Elected fellow, National Institute of Professional Engineers and Scientists (NIPES)

  • Cory Knox (Kwan Lab)

    Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) fellowship, National Institutes of Health

  • Shola Onissema-Karimu (Fischbach Lab)

    Inducted, Bouchet Honor Society.

  • Shenghao Tan (Cira Lab)

    Graduate excellence in mentoring award, Cornell Duffield Engineering Office of Inclusive Excellence

Meet the 2026 NSF Fellows

Alumni

  • Robby Bowles Ph.D. ’10

    2026 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor, University of Utah.

  • Lindsay Browning ’21

    Richie Moran Award, Cornell Athletics

  • Carolyn Chlebek Ph.D. ’22

    New Investigator Recognition Award (NIRA), Orthopaedic Research Society

  • Ashley Earle (Kaminsky) Ph.D. ’19

    Tenure, Department of Mechanical Engineering at York College of Pennsylvania

  • LaDeidra Monet Roberts Ph.D. ’19

    2025 – 2026 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentor, Virginia Tech Office of Undergraduate Research

  • Beckie Robertson ’82

    Distinguished Alumni Award, Cornell Duffield Engineering

Teams

Cornell DEBUT

Advised by faculty member James Antaki

  • Team MeyeAttention

    First-place, AI/ML Related to Patient Disease Diagnostics category at the 2025 Medtronic/BMES Student Design Competition, for a wearable device using pupillometry and machine learning to assess attention dysregulation and support ADHD diagnosis.

  • 2026 Albert R. George Student Team Award

    $2,000 award recognizing the team’s dedication, commitment and support of student innovation.

    Cornell Engineering Alumni Association
    May 1, 2026

Cornell iGEM

Advised by faculty members Nate Cira and Mridusmita Saikia

  • Team PRoSPER

    Gold medal, Best Hardware and Best Space Project: for a modular bioreactor system using a microbial coculture to remove perchlorate from Martian regolith.

    iGEM Grand Jamboree
    October 2025, Paris France

  • Team MaternaSense

    Gold Award (first runner-up), International Student Track: for a non-invasive sweat patch designed to monitor hormonal changes before and after childbirth and help detect pregnancy-related complications.

    HKUST One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition
    September 2025, Hong Kong, China

Hackathons

  • Lauren Howe-Meagher, M.Eng. ’26, Shruthi Gopi, M.Eng. ’26, Faith Nwando, M.Eng. ’26, Jacqueline Walker, MPH, M.Eng. ’26 and team Masticyte

    Finalists: for a same-day diagnostic solution to detect bovine mastitis-causing pathogens.

    Cornell Animal Health Hackathon
    February 20–22, 2026

  • Sally Scofield ’27, Molly Matri ’27 and team SurgeXR

    Most Impactful Project: for an XR, computer vision and machine-learning system that automatically recognizes and tracks surgical instruments to improve operating-room safety and efficiency.

    Cornell Health AI Hackathon
    March 6–8, 2026

Entrepreneurship