UT Dallas Honors Top Graduate Work

As The University of Texas at Dallas wrapped up the academic year this spring, a number of faculty, staff and students were honored for their contributions to academic excellence, student education and community involvement.

“It’s only through the commitment of dedicated faculty and staff, as well as curious and motivated students, that UT Dallas has become one of the top universities in the country,” said Dr. Inga Musselman, provost, vice president for academic affairs and the Cecil H. Green Distinguished Chair of Academic Leadership. “The individuals honored this year represent an entire campus of high achievers.”

Two recent PhD graduates from the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science were recognized for their outstanding academic performance.

David Daniel Thesis Award

Badrinath Jagannath PhD’21
Investigation of Sweat Biomarkers for Real-Time Reporting of Infection and Inflammation Using Wearable Sweat Sensor
Research mentor: Dr. Shalini Prasad

Badrinath Jagannath PhD’21 began studying electronics and instrumentation engineering at Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad in India, then earned a master’s degree in biomedical engineering from Arizona State University. He recently completed his PhD degree after participated in the University’s doctoral hooding ceremony with two other recent graduates from the UTD Biomedical Microdevices and Nanotechnology Lab.

Jagannath received one of two David Daniel Thesis Awards, which are supported by an endowment established in 2006 by Daniel, President Emeritus of UT Dallas and former deputy chancellor of the UT System. He also received a Baxter Young Investigator Award for developing a sensor designed to provide an early warning system for severe infection by detecting a cytokine storm. During his PhD program, he received a Bioengineering Graduate Fellowship award, the Mary and Richard Templeton Fellowship and the Bioengineering Graduate Productivity award. Jagannath has published 24 peer-reviewed journal articles and is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. His research interests include biosensor design and development, wearable point-of-care diagnostics and electrochemistry.

Best Dissertation Award

Nastaran Nikooienejad PhD’21
Control System Design for High-Speed Atomic Force Microscopy
Research Mentor: Dr. Reza Moheimani

Nastaran Nikooienejad PhD’21 earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering focusing on communication systems from Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran, in 2006 and a master’s degree in electrical engineering in signals and systems from the Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2009, where she was honored as the first ranked student. She then earned a doctoral degree in electrical engineering from The University of Texas at Dallas in 2021.

Nikooienejad was the winner of Best Dissertation Award for the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science in 2022 and the recipient of the Louis J. Beecherl Fellowship in 2019 and 2020 for her outstanding academic performance. She has also authored 12 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers during her PhD studies. She is currently a postdoctoral research associate for the Laboratory for Dynamics and Control of Nanosystems within the Department of Systems Engineering. Her research interests include control of high-precision mechatronic systems, high-speed scanning probe microscopy and signal and image processing.

A version of this story ran in News Center.