The Department of Mechanical Engineering held its 2025 graduation ceremony and reception on June 15 at Meany Hall. This year, ME awarded 200 bachelor’s, 102 master’s and 22 doctoral degrees.
Faculty members and a group of 2025 graduates.
Graduation speaker Justin Brynestad (B.S. ’03)
Thank you to graduation speaker Justin Brynestad (B.S. ’03), a vice president and program manager at Blue Origin, who shared key lessons learned through his engineering education and career. Brynestad leads development and production of New Shepard, a reusable rocket system designed to take astronauts and research payloads past the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space. He has held various engineering leadership roles in the aerospace industry and has been instrumental in the growth of both established and start-up organizations in North America, Europe and Asia. Brynestad is a licensed professional engineer (PE) and the chair of the Mechanical Engineering External Advisory Board.
We also thank speakers ME Chair and PACCAR Endowed Professor Alberto Aliseda, Ella Ramos-O’Neill (BSME ‘25), Niharika Karnik (PhD ‘25), ME Professor Junlan Wang and ME Professor John Kramlich.
Undergraduate student speaker Ella Ramos-O’Neill (left) and graduate student speaker Niharika Karnik (right).
2025 student awards
Undergraduate awards
- Outstanding Academic Award: Anika Harding
- Outstanding Research Award: Katelyn Bokowy
- Student Ambassador Award: Tim Wang
- Outstanding Design Award: Bradley Berbells, Navid Carey, Brunella Lozano-Ghilino, Norman Ma, Makaylaw Montleon
Graduate awards
- ME Distinguished Dissertation Award: Chih-Hsuan "Doris" Hung
- ME Distinguished Thesis Award: Tommy Zhang
- ME Excellent Project Award: Peyton Clark
- Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award: Ava Obenaus and Sayem Abdullah
Faculty members and 2025 student award winners.
Originally published June 25, 2025