Awards and honors

“Actually, it was here that I realized I wanted to be an entrepreneur,” said Miguel Avila during an interview in the 49er Foundry, the student business incubator at UNC Charlotte. Avila, a Belk College of Business senior, will graduate at Fall Commencement.

Recently, he was chosen to join the Venture for America (VFA) Fellowship program after a highly selective process. With more 2,400 applications for the class of 2018, the program extended offers to less than 18 percent, and Avila is the first UNC Charlotte student so honored.

A team of mechanical engineering graduate students from UNC Charlotte’s precision engineering program won the student challenge competition at the American Society for Precision Engineering’s (ASPE) 33rd annual conference in Las Vegas.

The Advanced Management Program for Legal Executives, a custom executive education program designed by the Association of Corporate Counsel Charlotte Chapter and UNC Charlotte Executive Education, has won an Outstanding Achievement Award for “Best Partnership Program” from the Association of Corporate Counsel.

Scott Smith, professor and chair of the Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science Department, has received the William T. Ennor Manufacturing Technology Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

UNC Charlotte’s chapter of Kappa Delta Pi, the international honor society in education, has continued an award-winning streak with a pair of honors at the 52nd Kappa Delta Pi Convocation. KDP received the Program Award for Professional Development and Literacy Alive Bronze Award, recognizing the impactful programming and service provided by the chapter during the last two years.

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Senior Associate Dean Shawn Long has received the Lyman T. Johnson Torch of Excellence Award from the University of Kentucky Lyman T. Johnson African American alumni group, honoring his impact on other people’s lives.

Gregory Mixon, professor of history, recently received the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council Award for Excellence in Research Using the Holdings of Archives.

The members of IEEE-USA, an organizational unit of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, have elected Jim Conrad of the William States Lee College of Engineering to serve as president for 2020. Conrad, a professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, will serve as president-elect in 2019.

UNC Charlotte’s young alumni waste no time in making marks in their fields and in the community, as evidenced by the inaugural 10 Under Ten Award winners – among them: a creative designer working in Los Angeles,; a fashion designer who styles Charlotte executives and a YouTube show host using her media platform to spread positive vibes.

The eighth annual Excellence in Leadership Awards were bestowed upon six outstanding alumni at a campus luncheon held in the Harris Alumni Center at Johnson Glen on Friday, Oct. 12.