Undergraduate Student Kirsch Wins Student Paper Award in Prague

August 17, 2009

Katie Kirsch, delivering her paper in Prague.

Katie Kirsch, undergraduate student in mechanical engineering, recently won first place in the Bachelor’s/Master’s category of the student paper competition at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Pressure Vessels and Piping conference in Prague, held July 26 through July 30.

Through a travel grant from ASME and support from the Women in Science and Engineering (WISER) program, Kirsch was able to travel to Prague to present her findings on “Data Mining of General Corrosion of Alloys, Using Kohonen Mapping.”

Kirsch’s paper, co-authored by Dr. Mst KamrunNahar, Research Associate in the Engineering Science and Mechanics (ESM) department, and Dr. Mirna Urquidi-Macdonald, Professor of ESM, was based on a study “developed to provide the optimum method for designing [metal] alloys.” Data was collected and mapped using Kohonen mapping software, which has the “ability to preserve the topological properties of the data,” writes Kirsch.