Cody Blankenship
A high school valedictorian from Knoxville has earned a scholarship from Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) and will be coming to Rocky Top to study computer science.
Cody Blankenship, a 2020 graduate of Apostolic Christian School, was awarded one of ORAU’s five William G. Pollard Scholarships of $2,500 toward undergraduate studies for the 2020-2021 academic year. He will pursue a degree in computer science in our Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Blankenship earned a 4.19 GPA in high school, was selected as valedictorian, and completed 12 hours of dual-enrollment courses to graduate with distinction. He helped to found and lead his school’s STEM Club, which set up a computer lab and completed a physical computing curriculum on Raspberry Pi computers. He was captain of the varsity soccer and basketball teams, and won a gold medal in cross-country at the 2019 National Apostolic Christian School Competition.
The William G. Pollard Scholarship Awards are presented in honor of ORAU’s founder in recognition of his dedication to science and education. A UT physics professor, Pollard founded the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies—which later became ORAU—to link the valuable scientific resources developed in Oak Ridge as part of the Manhattan Project with regional universities.
Other recipients of this year’s Pollard scholarships are Jamie Batson, Olivia Hudson, Audra Jean “AJ” Jones, and Savannah Jones. Each year, ORAU awards these scholarships to employees’ children or stepchildren who display exceptional achievements in their high school or undergraduate studies. Applicants must submit official transcripts from all high schools and colleges attended, three references (at least two of which must be from teachers), and a 500-word essay describing professional and personal interests.
Chen accomplishes important work with outreach to the local community, including the Young Scholar’s program, the Research Experiences for Teachers, and the Adventures in Stem program. In addition, she has assisted the college on many occasions with outreach efforts to members of underrepresented populations of students, including the HITES and eVOL pre-college programs, GEM GRAD Lab, Breakfast of Champions, and others.
Costinett’s efforts to increase the diversity of the college through his work with CURENT are impressive. His contributions are described by the department as “critical and formidable” to improving the culture of inclusion in CURENT.
Taufer’s high-visibility service to the high-performance computing community has been a great asset to the college. In particular, her leadership role in the SC19 conference went a long way to raising the college’s profile internationally. More people know what great things are happening here because of Taufer’s accomplishments—an exceptional model for the college.
Woelfel shows his dedication and skill in many ways, from resurrecting broken research servers to preserve data to staying late to upgrade a stubborn software license so lab sections can proceed without hiccups. His leadership is highlighted by swiftness of response, courteousness, competence, and the ability to think outside the box to find solutions. He enables EECS to provide high-quality instruction and innovative research in an environment where change is a never-ending process.
Skutnik makes an influential impact in providing diversity and inclusion awareness through the CURENT program. She has been inspirational in leading efforts to improve communication to those with diverse backgrounds, identifying strategic programming to increase underserved populations in undergraduate/graduate programs, and aligning with the university and college commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Blalock has a dedication and willingness to take on challenging and time-consuming instructional responsibilities such as senior design. He remains interested in the academic progress of his students as an advising coordinator and accomplishes all of this while managing a successful research program.
The awards committee was impressed with Marz’s work in teaching both service courses with high enrollments and courses with his majors to a wide range of levels, from undergraduate to doctoral students, while maintaining high student satisfaction and course rigor. Department Head Greg Peterson additionally noted Marz’s willingness to work with students facing challenges above and beyond normal expectations.
McFarlane’s research focuses on developing sensors for a wide variety of sensing applications that make faster measurements, measure more samples simultaneously, are smaller, and are less costly than traditional sensing systems. Her sensing applications thus far include neutron detection, glucose sensing, bowel sound detection, and temperature measurements. These diverse applications have resulted in her publishing 14 journal papers on technological advances in the last five years. Furthermore, she has published 25 refereed conference proceedings in this same timeframe.
