Illinois’ SHPE is Regional Chapter of the Year; AE Students Recognized at Convention

 The University of Illinois student chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers was recognized as the Regional Chapter of the Year, and four Aerospace Engineering undergraduates achieved individual honors during the recent SHPE National Conference.

The Urbana campus sent 59 members to the conference, held October 28 to November 1 in Washington, D.C. This conference hosted the largest national Hispanic convention to date with over 3,700 students and professionals in attendance.

Joseph Gonzalez, an AE senior and president of the Urbana student chapter, was named the SHPE National Student Role Model of the Year. The Student Role Model of the Year is the highest award the Society gives to a SHPE student member. The award recognizes the honoree’s outstanding contributions to his or her SHPE student chapter and the Hispanic community as well as academic excellence. Gonzalez was presented with the award at the GALA Banquet at which he addressed over 1,500 students and professionals in attendance. Gonzalez was also a part of SHPE|UIUC’s academic Olympiad team that took first place honors. The University of Houston took second and the University of California, Berkeley, third.

Eric Carreras, an AE sophomore and East Sub-Region Vice Regional Student Representative, was awarded the Future Leader of SHPE Award during the President’s Luncheon. The national award is presented annually to the organization’s most outstanding leaders who have greatly assisted in accomplishing SHPE’s goals. “It was truly an honor to be chosen as one of the recipients of this award for my dedication and involvement in SHPE throughout my freshman year, and presently during my sophomore year serving as a Vice-Regional Student Representative for Region VI,” Carreras said. He currently is completing his co-op with Rolls-Royce and will be returning to continue his undergraduate studies next spring semester.

AE freshmen Emily Zavala, President of the Freshmen Roundtable, and Michelle Diaz, Freshmen Roundtable High School Outreach Chair, competed in the convention’s Extreme Engineering competition. In the 24-hour competition, teams design, develop, and promote a product. This year’s task was to design and build a robot to accomplish a certain task, and then market it to an audience. The selection process was very competitive: 80 of 200 students were chosen through interviews, and then were divided into eight teams of ten participants. Both Diaz and Zavala were selected and performed exceptionally. Each was named as the “Most Valuable Engineers” of their team, and Zavala was a member of the first place team.