Congratulations, class of 2026

To accommodate the growing number of students, the Department of Mechanical Engineering celebrated the class of 2026 with two separate undergraduate and graduate ceremonies on June 14 at Meany Hall. This year, ME awarded 236 bachelor’s, 134 master’s and 39 doctoral degrees.

Thank you to graduation speaker Greg Hyslop, a respected aerospace industry leader who retired in 2023 after a 41-year career at Boeing. Starting as a guidance and control engineer, Hyslop progressed through various technical leadership and program management positions before completing his career as chief engineer, leading the 50,000+ member engineering team at Boeing. Hyslop is an affiliate ME professor at the UW, a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and an active board member for multiple academic and industry groups, including the Dean's Advisory Board for the University of Nebraska College of Engineering and the National Council for the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis.

We also thank speakers ME Chair and PACCAR Endowed Professor Alberto Aliseda, Mia Hoffman (PhD ’26), Zegna Picano (BSME ’26), ME Professor Junlan Wang and ME Professor John Kramlich.

Undergraduate student speaker Zegna Picano (left) and graduate student speaker Mia Hoffman (right).

2026 student awards

Undergraduate awards

• Outstanding Academic Award: Jasiah Adame
• Outstanding Research Award: Gabi Laurenz
• Student Ambassador Award: Renee Yeung
• Outstanding Design Award: Alex Gee, Clark Hegewald, Galen Hoffman, Haoran Lu, Henry Reimer

Graduate awards

• Distinguished Dissertation Award: Satria Ardianuari
• Distinguished Thesis Award: Alvin Liu
• Excellent Project Award: Raghav Bhatt, Jiaqing Li
• Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award: Michael Bi, Thomas Chu