Three School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) undergraduate students were recognized at the Institute’s 2022 Student Honors Celebration on April 21.

Zachary Olkin won the Outstanding Computer Engineering Senior Award, Katherine Roberts won the Outstanding Electrical Engineering Senior Award, and Pardyot Yadav won the Undergraduate Research Award. All three were honored for the same awards at ECE’s Roger P. Webb Awards this year. Congratulations to these amazing students! Learn a bit more about them below.

Zachary Olkin:

• Olkin graduated with a Computer Engineering major in four years this spring while maintaining a 4.0 GPA, holding an internship at a robotics start-up, and conducting groundbreaking undergraduate research.
  
  His research investigates new methods for novel control algorithms that will transform the way robots safely and robustly function in uncertain, real-world environments.
  
  Olkin recently received a 2022 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. The only Tech undergraduate to receive the prominent award this year.

Katherine Roberts:

• Roberts graduated with an Electrical Engineering degree this spring with a 4.0 GPA. While working in the prestigious Kippelen Research Group she successfully designed an accurate and mobile source meter capable of testing solar cells quicker and in different environments.
  
  She is the team leader for her senior design project “Self-Defense Wearable Jewelry.” After learning that 1 in 5 college women are sexually assaulted, Roberts was determined to create a wearable self-defense weapon that will shock the perpetrator, track GPS location of the victim, and notify emergency contacts of the attack.
  
  She is also has dedicated hundreds of hours working with the Residence Hall Association, serving over 8,500 students living on campus.

Pardyot Yadav

• Yadav graduated with an Electrical Engineering degree this spring and will be continuing his studies at MIT EECS this fall. He aims to develop circuit topologies and semiconductor devices that will revolutionize electronics.
  
  His research began his first semester working in professor James Kenney’s lab investigating radio frequency and microwave power amplifier design, which led to his winning the IMS Student Design Competition in 2019 and a publication in the Microwave Journal in 2020.
  
  His impactful work led to being named a 2021 scholar by The Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation.