The UMass Amherst College of Engineering is proud to announce the recipients of its 2020 outstanding alumni awards. Awardees represent the college’s five departments, and include five Distinguished Alumni and four Outstanding Young Alumni.

This year’s honorees include:

Distinguished Alumni Award

Presented to visionary leaders who have reached exceptional levels of professional and personal achievement. The award recognizes distinguished leadership, service, teaching, innovation, and other exemplary accomplishments that positively impact society and the engineering profession. 

• Amir Amini ’83 Electrical and Computer Engineering (Biomedical Engineering)
  Professor and Endowed Chair in Bioimaging
  University of Louisville
   
• Rena Bizios ’68 Chemical Engineering
  Lutcher Brown Chair Professor Department of Biomedical Engineering
  University of Texas at San Antonio
   
• Nicholas Bowen ’92 PhD Electrical and Computer Engineering
  Consultant and retired senior IBM Executive
  Industry Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology
  Executive-in-Residence at Brown University
   
• Lizetta Fennessy ’92, ’94 MS Civil and Environmental Engineering
  General Manager at Haley & Aldrich
   
• Emanuel Melachrinoudis ’80 PhD Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
  Director of Industrial Engineering and Associate Chair
  Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
  Northeastern University

Outstanding Young Alumni Award

Presented to emerging leaders in the early stages of their careers. The award recognizes outstanding professional and personal achievements, and highlights the recipient’s ambitions and potential to positively impact UMass, the Commonwealth, the nation and the world.

• David Babson ’04 Chemical Engineering
  Program Director, Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E)
  U.S. Department of Energy
   
• Ivan Bercovich ’09 Electrical and Computer Engineering
  Senior Engineering Manager, Alexa - Amazon
   
• Christina Jones ’07, ’09 MS Civil and Environmental Engineering
  Deputy Director of Water Operations
  Springfield Water and Sewer Commission, Springfield, Mass.
   
• Paul Witherell ’04, ’06 MS, ’09 PhD Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
  Mechanical Engineer, Life Cycle Engineering (LCE) Group of the
  Systems Integration Division (SID) of the Engineering Laboratory (EL) at the
  National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

These outstanding alumni bring great pride and distinction to UMass Amherst Engineering. Read more about their accomplishments here.

For more information on the college’s outstanding alumni awards, please contact MK Young, in the Engineering Office of Development.