Eight College of Engineering graduate students recognized with Torgersen research awards

The College of Engineering has announced the 2025 recipients of the Paul E. Torgersen Graduate Student Research Excellence Awards, recognizing exceptional research by graduating master's and doctoral students.
The eight winning projects — from four master’s and four Ph.D. students who were nearing graduation or had completed their degrees — span a remarkable range of engineering disciplines and real-world applications, including graduate education systems, combat helmet performance, humanoid robotics, and post-disaster recovery.
This year's applicant pool nearly doubled, with 57 proposals showcasing the growing research excellence in the College of Engineering. This prestigious award has been presented annually since 1990.
Ph.D. award winners
First place: Margaret "Maggie" Webb, engineering education
- Research: Systems to Transform Interdisciplinary Graduate Education: An Ecological Systems Analysis of STEM Graduate Students' Longitudinal Interdisciplinary Identity-Based Motivation
- Advisor: Marie Paretti
- Future plans: Working as an Interdisciplinary Education Research postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University
Second place (tie): Allison Nelson, biomedical engineering and mechanics
- Research: Experimental Evaluation of Combat Helmet Performance in Mitigating Blast Loading on the Head
- Advisor: Pam VandeVord
- Future plans: Continuing to investigate the biomechanical response of the brain during blast at the VandeVord TNT Lab at Virginia Tech
Second place (tie): Connor Herron, mechanical engineering
- Research: Design and Control of a Structurally Elastic Humanoid Robot
- Advisors: Alexander Leonessa and Kaveh Akbari Hamed
- Future plans: Working at Persona AI as a humanoid locomotion controls engineer
Third place: Elham Nassarian, industrial and systems engineering
- Research: Enhancing AI-Clinician Communication: Building Trust to Improve Patient Outcomes
- Advisor: Kwok Leung Tsui
- Future plans: Pursuing a research-oriented position at the intersection of healthcare and artificial intelligence, focusing on predictive analytics, machine learning, and responsible, trustworthy AI
Master's award winners
First place: Héctor Rafael De La Coromoto Montilla Peña, civil and environmental engineering
- Research: Optimizing Post-Extreme Natural Hazard Event Habitation Recovery: A System Dynamics Approach to CIIS Classification, Procedural Delays, and Mitigation Strategies
- Advisor: David Nelson Ford
- Future plans: Joining Allan Myers as a field engineer on the $175 million I-64 Gap C Design-Build project in Virginia
Second place: Chinecherem Dimobi, computer science
- Research: Information Flow Control in eBPF: Preventing Unintended Data Access
- Advisor: Dan Williams
- Future plans: Joining Intuit as a security engineer
Third place: Emma Szczesniak, biomedical engineering and mechanics
- Research: Frequency Interception and Manipulation Vulnerabilities in Myoelectric-Computer Interface Signal Transmission
- Advisor: Aaron Brantly
- Future plans: Working for Vanda Pharmaceuticals' clinical team in Washington, D.C.
Fourth place: Leah Rebecca Thomas, biomedical engineering and mechanics
- Research: Patient-Centered Usability Evaluation of LymphaVibe: A Novel Device for Upper-Extremity Lymphedema Management
- Advisor: Chris Arena
- Future plans: Working with Virginia Tech's Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics to lead a health access–focused summer program for middle and high school students in Southwest Virginia
Diverse and impactful research
Graduate students are pivotal to the university's research enterprise, driving innovation through their own original investigations and by supporting and advancing faculty-led projects across disciplines. Reflecting the College of Engineering's committment to fostering excellence, innovation, and leadership in research, the Torgersen Awards recognize graduate students whose master's or Ph.D. work exemplifies high-impact, significant contributions to their fields.
An additional 12 finalist projects explored other impactful topics, including coseismic landslides simulation, multimodal freight transport optimization, driving impairment assessment, smart building operations with large language models, immersive sensemaking, bioplastic production from organic waste, and secure programming education.
The College of Engineering congratulates all participants for their exceptional research contributions.
For more information about the Paul E. Torgersen Graduate Student Research Excellence Awards, visit the website featuring all 20 finalists.
Written by Alicia Johnson, director of graduate and professional studies, College of Engineering