Engineering Students Honored at IEEE Awards

Photo: From left, Nicholas Passaretti, Kayla Ho, Walter A. Poggi, president of Retlif Testing Labs and founder of the NYIT IEEE Student Branch, and Alexander Duong.

NYIT School of Engineering and Computing Sciences students were honored at the 2017 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Long Island Section Awards on March 29 at the Fox Hollow in Woodbury, N.Y.

The 30—and growing—members of the NYIT IEEE Student Branch were awarded the Long Island Section Velio Marsocci Outstanding Student Branch Award for exceptional efforts in organizing meetings on timely topics of benefit to electrical and computer engineering students.

Students Kayla Ho, Alexander Duong, and Nicholas Passaretti along with Babak D. Beheshti, Ph.D., professor and associate dean of the School of Engineering and Computing Sciences, accepted the award on the group’s behalf.

“It is an honor to be the recipient of the Outstanding Student Branch award,” said Ho, chair of the NYIT IEEE Student Branch. “It is a testament to the great accomplishments of our students, faculty, staff, and professional engineers who collaborate to make our student branch the best it can be.”

“This will motivate the next generation of the student leadership to maintain and increase the level of excellence that the current student leadership has achieved,” added Beheshti.

The IEEE Long Island Section’s annual awards banquet recognizes the accomplishments of engineers who significantly contribute towards the growth of the section and the region.

“This is a prestigious award from the Long Island Section of the IEEE, the world’s largest professional organization with over 400,000 members,” said Beheshti.

The students are not only honored to be recognized for their work, they are also thrilled to be a part of IEEE. “The event was amazing,” said Ho. “Interacting with, being surrounded by, comparing notes and exchanging contact information with our extended IEEE family made us realize that being an IEEE student member is more than just being part of a university organization, it is the first step on our journey to be part of the greater IEEE community, a major step on our journey to make the world a better place.”