Student, faculty awards 2017–2018

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology

• Piero, a company created by a team of six BYU undergraduates who are part of the Crocker Innovation Fellowship program, won $10,000 in the CommonBond Social Impact Award competition.
• This year, 10 BYU engineering students earned honor society scholarships from Tau Beta Pi. The students received $2,000 for a full year or $1,000 for a semester toward their engineering studies.
• BYU electrical and computer engineering professor Randal W. Beard received BYU’s highest faculty honor, the Karl G. Maesar Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Award.
• BYU graduate student Jared Butler won first place at the 2017 Design Engineering Technical Conferences hosted by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
• BYU graduate student Scott Davies took home top awards at the national woodturning competition Turning To The Future in the fall of 2017.
• Chad Josephson, a Ph.D. student at BYU studying electrical engineering, won second place in a student paper contest for the annual International Telemetering Conference in September 2017.
• A paper by BYU electrical engineering PhD student Chad Josephson and professor Michael Rice won first place at the October 2017 International Telemetering Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.
• Civil and environmental engineering professor Michael Scott was named a Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher for the second year in a row in February 2018. Scott has earned this honor twice in his five years as a professor.
• Construction students and faculty were honored at the 2018 National Association of Home Builders Show in Orlando, Florida.
• The winning team for the 2018 Student Innovator of the Year competition created Portal, a device that opens doors automatically when a wheelchair user with the app is near a door. The team received a $6,000 cash prize and plans to use the money to bring Portal to the mass market.

College of Life Sciences 

• Senior Anne Thomas is BYU’s fifth ever Gates Scholar and will begin her doctoral program at Cambridge University this fall. The fellowship is an all-expenses paid experience funded by Bill and Melinda Gates.
• BYU won the National Collegiate Landscaping Competition for the second year in a row in March 2018. BYU has won this title six times since 2003.

College of Nursing

• BYU assistant teaching professor and family nurse practitioner Lacey Eden created an app called “Best for Baby” that educates parents on immunizations and their child’s general health.
• BYU received three of four Outstanding Nurse Practicioner Awards from the Utah Nurse Practitioners association. Dr. Beth Luthy, Ryan Rasmussen and graduate student Katie Hill were honored as Outstanding Nurse Practitioners.
• The College of Nursing received a gold-level Healthy Department Award in March 2018 from the BYU Wellness Department.
• The DAISY Foundation recently acknowledged assistant teaching professor Gaye Ray and nursing student McKenzie Weir for their compassionate service by the DAISY Foundation.

College of Fine Arts and Communications

• MovieMaker Magazine listed the BYU Media Arts Program as one of the top 40 film schools in North America.
• Catherine Winters Boyack was awarded first place in a national flute competition, the National Federation of Music Clubs Student Collegiate Competition.
• Award-winning musical “Single Wide” debuted at BYU during Winter 2018.

Marriott School of Business

• BYU associate professor of accountancy David Wood has won his seventh American Accounting Association award, the 2017 American Horizons Best Paper Award.
• Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leon Panetta was honored on Sept. 21 with the Marriott School’s 2017 International Executive of the Year Award.
• Forbes ranked BYU’s Marriott School of Business as No. 19 in the nation in 2017, two spots higher than the last ranking in 2015.
• U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Brett Swigert was named the 2017 N. Dale Wright Alumnus of the Year by the Romney Institute of Public Management.
• The 2017 Princeton Review’s annual Best Business School rankings recently ranked the BYU Marriott MBA No. 1 in the nation in the Most Family Friendly category for the 13th year in a row.
• Two teams of BYU students each won first place in different divisions of the Purdue Human Resources Case Competition during Fall 2017.
• The Financial Times ranked the Marriott School among the world’s top programs. The BYU Marriott MBA ranked No. 34 in the U.S. and No. 68 among worldwide MBA programs, in addition to high rankings in other categories in February 2018.
• A team of students  created a system that opens wheelchair accessible doors with an app. Their project won the Miller Competition Series Business Model Competition on Feb. 1. The team won $5,500 in prize money.
• Marriott School students Tyler Hardy, Jess Landro and Kyle Nordhagen won first place in the Duff and Phelps case competition in February 2018. The group was one of three finalist teams that was selected to go to New York City to compete.
• Ten MBA candidates were named 2018 Hawes Scholars, winning $10,000 each. This recognition is the highest distinction given to MBA students at the school.
• Seven Marriott School students were named George E. Stoddard Scholars in March 2018, winning $5,000 cash awards.
• Adam Pulsipher, BYU linebacker and master’s of public administration student, was named to the 2017 College Sports Information Directors of America’s Academic All-District Team.
• A team of Marriott School students won first place at the Milgard Corporate Social Responsibility Case Competition for the second year in a row.
• Professor Jeff Jenkins was recently named a winner of the AIS Early Career Award in Seoul, South Korea. Jenkins was one of five individuals to be honored for their contributions to the field of information systems.

J. Reuben Clark Law School

• BYU’s Center for Conflict Resolution recognized James Ferrell during its annual Peacemaker Award Presentation on Sept. 21, the International Day of Peace.
• Law professors Gladriel Shobe and Clifton Fleming are among the top 20 most-downloaded tax law professors of all time. Shobe ranks no. 18 with 23,544 downloads of her scholarly articles, while Fleming ranks no. 7 with 86,935 downloads.
• BYU Law students participated in the first ever Global Legal Hackathon Feb. 22-24. Second year law student Brianna Rosier and her team won the first leg of the competition and will go on to compete in round two in New York City.

David O. McKay School of Education

• Stefinee Pinnegar, an education professor at BYU, was given the Sponsored Research Recognition Award during the 2017 BYU University Conference August 28–31.
• Leading journal “Educational Technology Research and Development” ranked BYU’s Instructional Psychology and Technology program among the top six in the nation in 2018.

College of Family Home and Social Sciences

• BYU economics student Jacob Fisher won first place in the Wheatley Institution‘s10-Year Anniversary Essay Contest in fall 2017.
• TIME Magazine turned to history professor Rebecca de Schweinitz in February 2018 for her expertise on youth activism in American history for a recent article.

College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences

• Geology professor Jani Radebaugh and her team have qualified as finalists in NASA’s New Frontiers program in January 2018.
• BYU Math Department Chair Michael Dorff was recently named President of the Math Association of America.
• Eighteen graduate students participated in the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences’ Three Minute Thesis competition this year.
• BYU alum Scott Ruoti was a co-recipient of the 2017 John Karat Usable Privacy and Security Student Research Award.
• A team of computer science students won a $250,000 grant in Amazon’s Alexa Prize Challenge. The winning team created Eve, a social bot that answers questions similarly to Alexa but also has the ability to maintain a conversation with users.

Student Employment

• BYU physics and astronomy lab technician Dallin Glen Squires was recently selected as Student Employee of the Year.