Left to right: GAIN Co-Directors, Balaji Chandrasekaran and Jorge Vasquez; GEC President, Columbia Mishra; Engineering Career Assistance Center Director, Michael Powell; GAIN committee members, Navneet Vyas, and Avinash Ashokkumar.
The eighth Graduate and Industry Networking (GAIN) event, organized by the Graduate Engineering Council, was held on February 27 at the Texas Union, at The University of Texas at Austin. There were 11 companies in attendance at GAIN 2013, with 111 registered poster presentations by graduate engineering students. The poster session was judged by 15 Cockrell School of Engineering faculty members. The Department of Mechanical Engineering, and the Department of Chemical Engineering proudly supported this year's GAIN. A total of 182 graduate engineering students registered to attend GAIN 2013.
GAIN 2013: Connecting Industry and Students
GAIN is a student-led event tailored to facilitate communication between graduate students and potential employers. GAIN 2013 was led by GEC president, Columbia Mishra, Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering; and GAIN Co-Directors, Balaji Chandrasekaran, MS student in Operations Research, and Jorge Vasquez, Ph.D. student in Chemical Engineering. GAIN 2013 also had the guidance of Engineering Career Assistance Center (ECAC) Director Michael Powell and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Dr. Gerald E. Speitel.This event could not have happened without the many hours spent by several graduate students on the GAIN committee.
GAIN 2013 included a banquet where graduate students, faculty, and industry representatives dined and networked in a relaxed environment.
Selected graduate students present their research at the poster session during the first part of the program. This gives them the opportunity to showcase the cutting-edge research conducted at our university daily. Following the poster session, potential employers and interested graduate students have the opportunity to converse and interact at a relaxed networking session. The networking part of the program strives to nurture professional ties between students and industry representatives. GAIN 2013 speakers included John Baird, Senior Reservoir Engineer at Shell, and Joe Fowler, President at Stress Engineering Services Inc. This year's GAIN concluded with a banquet, and the presentation of awards to 11 outstanding research posters.
First held in 2005, GAIN has become an annual opportunity to showcase the research conducted by some of our finest engineering students, facilitating industry awareness of their scientific work and potential. After a hiatus in 2011, GAIN was reinstated in 2012 by the GEC team under the leadership of Mechanical Engineering graduate student, Columbia Mishra. The overwhelming success of GAIN 2013 builds on the foundations of the 2012 edition. This year's edition of GAIN continued to strengthen the relationship between the UT student body and industry representatives.
Graduate Engineering Council
The Graduate Engineering Council has served the Cockrell School graduate student body for 43 years. The GEC's main purpose is to represent graduate engineering students before the university administration, and the Senate of College Councils. The GEC also hosts many signature events pertinent to graduate life including the Energy Seminars, Academic Career Preparation Seminar Series, Student Speaker Series and GAIN. The Council promotes graduate studies in engineering, through the execution of Graduate School Information Panels for undergraduate students, social gatherings, and the distribution of travel grants for graduate students attending academic conferences.
GEC President, Columbia Mishra
Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering, and current Graduate Engineering Council president, Columbia Mishra
Current GEC President, Columbia Mishra is a Mechanical Engineering Ph.D. student under the supervision of current Department Chair, Dr. Jayathi Murthy. Columbia was elected president of the Graduate Student Assembly with a 76.22% majority of the vote in the campus-wide elections held in February. She is the first engineering student to be elected for this position. As GSA President, Columbia will represent the university's graduate student body before the university administration, the Board of Regents of The University of Texas System, the City of Austin and the Texas Legislature. Columbia will begin her one-year term on April 3, 2013. Her main focus will be to advocate for better graduate student advising, improved career resources, and tuition benefits.
Columbia is in the Thermal-Fluids track of the Ph.D. program at the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Her research is on optimization and prediction of device lifetime in Micro-Electro Mechanical Switches (MEMS). She has been published in four peer-reviewed journals and three conference publications and is also a recipient of the Cockrell School of Engineering Student Leadership Award 2012.
