★ Awards & Recognition
Best of MDS-Rely
Celebrating outstanding research presentations and papers from our semi-annual meetings, as voted by our industry members and IAB.
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MDS-Rely Industry Members, Researchers, Faculty, and Directors thank and congratulate all award recipients for their outstanding contributions to the science of materials reliability.
Spring 2026
MDS-Rely's Best: Spring 2026 Awards Announced
April 15, 2026 · Mill 19, Pittsburgh, PA
🎓 Poster Symposium Winners
📋
Best Poster — Winner
Caroline Kromalic
Case Western Reserve University
"Evaluating the Reliability of Aerosol Jet Printed Circuits"
✦
Best Poster — Runner Up
Shubha Sankar Banerjee & Heqiao Ruan
University of Pittsburgh
"Data-Driven Early Detection of Thermal Runaway in Lithium-ion Batteries"
MDS-Rely proudly congratulates the Spring 2026 poster symposium winners! The meeting on April 15, 2026 welcomed 47 attendees and 15 companies alongside CMU, Pitt, and CWRU, exploring the theme "Pioneering the Next Five Years" at Mill 19.
Full Announcement →
Fall 2025
MDS-Rely's Best: Fall 2025 Awards Announced
August 26, 2025 · Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH
🏛️ Faculty Awards
🎓 Student Awards
🏅
Senior Design Project
Lunar Intelligence & Reconnaissance Initiative
University of Pittsburgh
- 🏆 1st Place — Industrial Engineering Department
- Advisors: Oliver Hinder (Pitt) & Shawn Higbee (LLNL)
🏅
Senior Design Project
Vibration Durability of Printed Electronics for UAVs
University of Pittsburgh
- 🏆 1st Place — Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science Department
- Advisors: Paul Leu (Pitt) & David Sabonash (US Armaments DEVCOM Center)
Congratulations to the Fall 2025 award recipients! MDS-Rely recognizes outstanding faculty achievements and senior design project excellence from our Fall 2025 meeting at Case Western Reserve University.
Full Announcement →
Spring 2025
MDS-Rely's Best: Spring 2025 Awards Announced
April 8, 2025 · University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
🏛️ Faculty Awards
🏛️
Distinguished Professorship
Laura Bruckman
Case Western Reserve University
Climo Professorship — March 28, 2025
🏛️
Distinguished Professorship
John Kitchin
Carnegie Mellon University
John E. Swearingen Professorship — March 2025
🔬
NSF CAREER Award — LBPF Printing
Prof. Xiayun Zhao
University of Pittsburgh
🎓 Student Awards
🏅
Aerosol Jet Printing
Sylvie Crowell
Case Western Reserve University
- MSNO Student Award — May 2024
- Best Undergraduate Poster — 65th Annual May Conference, MSNO — May 2024
🏅
Aerosol Jet Printing
Lexi Miskey
Case Western Reserve University
Best Physical Sciences Poster — CWRU Intersections Poster Symposium, April 2024
🏅
Aerosol Jet Printing
Daniel Rakowsky
Case Western Reserve University
Best Student Paper — 65th Annual May Conference, Microscopy Society of Northeastern Ohio, May 2024
🏅
LBPF Printing
Haolin Zhang
University of Pittsburgh
Best MEMS Research Assistant Award
🏅
EMI Shielding
Mingxuan Li
University of Pittsburgh
Outstanding PhD Paper of Summer 2023 — Chemical Engineering Department, University of Pittsburgh
🏅
Binder Jet Printing
Pierangelie Rodriguez
University of Pittsburgh
2024 AIME Henry DeWitt Smith Scholarship — March 2024
MDS-Rely proudly congratulates the Spring 2025 award recipients! We celebrate outstanding student and faculty achievements from our Spring 2025 meeting at the University of Pittsburgh.
Full Announcement →
Summer 2025
MDS-Rely's Best: Summer 2025 Awards Announced
Summer Meeting 2025 · Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL
Awards for the Summer 2025 meeting will be announced soon. Check back for updates recognizing outstanding research from our Summer 2025 meeting at Northeastern Illinois University.
Full Announcement →
Fall 2024
MDS-Rely's Best: Fall 2024 Awards Announced
September 18, 2024 · Fall Meeting
Awards for the Fall 2024 meeting will be updated soon. Check back for updates recognizing outstanding research from our Fall 2024 meeting.
Full Announcement →
Spring 2024
MDS-Rely's Best: Spring 2024 Awards Announced
Spring Meeting 2024
🎓 Student Awards
🏅
EMI Shielding
Mingxuan Li
University of Pittsburgh
- Outstanding PhD Paper of Summer 2023 — Chemical Engineering Dept., Pitt
- Paper featured on journal cover: "Silver Meshes for Record-Performance Transparent Electromagnetic Interference Shielding" — June 2023
🏅
Aerosol Jet Printing
Sylvie Crowell
Case Western Reserve University
2024 AIME Henry DeWitt Smith Scholarship — March 28, 2024
🏅
Binder Jet Printing
Pierangelie Rodriguez
University of Pittsburgh
2024 AIME Henry DeWitt Smith Scholarship — March 2024
📋
Best Poster — Senior Design Project
RocketWatch Team
University of Pittsburgh — Nathan Carney, Lauren Hoge, Alison Linares Mendoza, Jessica Kneller
- Best Poster Award — MDS-Rely Spring 2024 Meeting
- Best Overall Project — Pitt Engineering Design Expo (out of 88 teams)
- Advisors: Oliver Hinder & Scott Streiner (Pitt), Jason Bernstein (LLNL)
MDS-Rely congratulates the Spring 2024 award recipients! We recognize outstanding student achievements from our Spring 2024 meeting.
Full Announcement →
Fall 2023
MDS-Rely's Best: Fall 2023 Awards Announced
September 12–13, 2023 · Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH
🎓 Poster Symposium Winners
📋
Best Poster
Akissi Ange Dominique Yao
"Statistical Analysis and Degradation Pathway Modeling of PERC PV Minimodules with Different Packaging Strategies in Indoor Accelerated Exposures"
✦
Runner-Up
Hein Htet Aung
"netSEM Service Lifetime Prediction of Polymers"
Congratulations to the Fall 2023 poster winners! The meeting welcomed 65 attendees and 18 organizations at Case Western Reserve University, with special thanks to Ray Fryan (Howmet Technologies) and Dr. Katherine Hoffman (Eastman) for their Fireside Chat contributions.
Full Announcement →
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