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Success Stories

Student success

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s national competition, Campus RainWorks Challenge, encourages students to design green infrastructure solutions. FIU’s dynamic and driven multi-disciplinary team won first place out of 50 competing schools. Their design for the Biscayne Bay Campus incorporated green infrastructure practices that mimic the natural water cycle. The plan works to collect rainwater during extreme weather events to combat stormwater pollution. The team received a $5,000 student prize and a $5,000 faculty prize.

Ahead of the 2020 Super Bowl LIV, an enterprising FIU collaboration between CARTA, the CEC, FIU police and Miami-Dade Police Department made security planning easier and more efficient. This was accomplished with a detailed 4-by-5-foot 3-D model of the Hard Rock Stadium. The FIU team that made it happen consisted of Project Director Hadi Alhaffar, undergraduate IT software student Samuel Morris, and architecture graduate students Katherin Rendon and Francisco Alduenda.

REAL students making REAL impact

Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE), FIU’s largest on-campus technology organization, puts on an annual hackathon, ShellHacks. A hackathon is a weekend-long event where students come together to learn the latest technologies and build innovative projects. ShellHacks is the largest hackathon in the state of Florida. This year, UPE and the Office of the President collaborated to create another hackathon — a virtual summer event called PantherHacks, designed to produce solutions to COVID-19 related problems.

Two graduate students and five undergraduate students from FIU’s Transforming Antennas Center (TAC) presented their research at the 2020 Emerging Researchers National Conference in STEM. Briana Gonzalez won first place in the undergraduate poster presentation category and Gianfranco Perez-Greco won second place in the graduate oral presentation category.

Samanbar Permeh, civil and environmental engineering Ph.D. student, received 2nd place in a poster competition during Coatings+2020 for the poster entitled, “Identification of Biofilm Formation on a Biocide Based Antifouling Coating by Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS).”

My first job

REAL grads share their journey to landing that first job out of college

Jorge Cisternas @ Lockheed Martin
Jorge Cisternas, a mechanical engineering alumnus, currently works at Lockheed Martin as an engineer. He first met with Lockheed Martin (LM) at FIU's Resume Fest, where he was invited to interview. He is part of the LM’s Engineering Leadership Development Program, which provides leadership training and networking opportunities for recent grads.

Cesia Bulnes @ Microsoft
Computer science alumna, Cesia Bulnes found her first job working at Microsoft. There she works as a program manager writing technical documents and code, attending meetings, and working with developers. She started as an intern and earned herself a full-time position.

Gabriel Maravi @ Northrop Grumman
Gabriel Maravi’s first job is at Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems as an electronics system integration engineer. He graduated with a bachelor's in electrical engineering and credits his FIU classes with preparing him for his new job. He advises students to prepare themselves for their first job's day-today, but don’t be afraid to learn on the job.

Workforce development

Partnerships

The college collaborates with numerous industry partners, many of which hire our students upon graduation. Here are two highlighted partnerships.

Anglo American Platinum, the world’s leading primary producer of Platinum Group Metals (PGMs), awarded a $3 million grant to sponsor, develop and ultimately commercialize the patent of a high-density lithium battery that relies on platinum and related chemical elements to boost energy storage. The FIU innovation could triple the mileage of electric vehicles between charges. Beyond transportation, the batteries can potentially be used in energy-grid storage—saving the power that comes from sources such as wind, water and the sun, even portable electronics.

MITRE, a not-for-profit organization that works in the public’s interest in partnership with governments, industries and academia, established a strategic partnership with FIU to cultivate student talent while promoting innovation. The MITRE partnership provides an opportunity to broaden the pathway to high-quality internships for students. The number of interns and recent hires at MITRE reflects the success of this partnership. It has greatly benefited FIU students by engaging them in innovative research and development, while achieving MITRE’s mission of solving problems for a safer world.

Bilal El-Zahab, associate professor

Alumni spotlight

Denisse Aranda, FIU Alumna ‘10 Contamination Control Engineer, Blue Origin

At FIU, Denisse Aranda made it a point to say, “yes!” to all opportunities. While at FIU, Aranda joined the Applied Research Center (ARC) as an undergraduate research scientist, investigating ways to store and transport radioactive waste from U.S. Department of Energy sites. Through her experience at ARC, Aranda secured several internships, one as a DOE Fellow, and two at NASA. Upon graduating from FIU with a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering, Aranda was hired at NASA as a mechanical, control contamination and Assembly, Integration, and Test engineer. During her eight years at NASA, she also served as program director for Science Camps of America, a non-profit organization that hosts an educational camp in Hawaii. Presently, Aranda works at the space exploration company, Blue Origin.