Corrosion engineering students put expertise to the test — win scholarships

University of Akron corrosion engineering students walked away with just over half of the available scholarships at the NACE Conference, held in early March in Vancouver, British Columbia. NACE is an international professional organization for corrosion engineers.

Fourteen UA students from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering's corrosion program won just over $74,000 — out of the more than $135,000 in scholarships presented at the NACE Conference. UA has the first and only baccalaureate degree in corrosion engineering in the nation. The program incorporates workforce training and world-class research in corrosion and materials performance.

Scholarship winners were Nicholas D'Angelo, Elmira Ghanbari, Linsey Grzeschik, Abigail Helbling, Jovan Jevric, Faycal Khabouchi, Ben Kopchak, Paul Kowalski, Madeline Lee, Feby Mathew, Sean O'Brien, Paul Krell, Nathaniel Sutton and Mary Teague.

Krell (Mars Fontana category) and Sutton (Harvey Herro category) also took third-place honors in poster sessions where they competed against graduate and undergraduate students.

Senior Ana Bacco received the Outstanding Student Award, which recognizes exceptional service to NACE International, NACE Foundation, a NACE student chapter or the ACC Student Sub-committee. To be considered exceptional, the student’s participation “must be recognized as significant to the growth of NACE and positively influencing the education of current and future students in the fields of corrosion science and engineering.” Bacco has been a NACE member since 2013 and plans to continue participating within different areas of the association.

NACE International is a global authority on corrosion control. Students supported by NACE Foundation scholarships study science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines related to corrosion control in undergraduate degree programs.