2026 Commencement Weekend has arrived!
Our graduating seniors were welcomed to campus this morning by a glorious spring day—brilliant blue skies replacing the lingering rain clouds overnight and creating a lush, verdant setting for the main ceremony.
We could not be prouder of these remarkable students who, over the past four years, have inspired us with their determination, courage, and passion for building bold new futures.
We look forward to another beautiful day tomorrow as diplomas are presented at the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences Ceremony.
Congratulations, CEMS Class of 2026!!!
#UVMGrad #CEMSClassof2026
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This week, Dean Mandar Dewoolkar presented the 2026 CEMS Faculty and Staff Awards during the college’s annual retreat. The awards recognize members of the CEMS community for exceptional contributions across a range of core academic, research, and performance metrics:
Mechanical Engineering Professor Douglas Fletcher was presented with the Outstanding Faculty Member Award.
Civil and Environmental Engineering Associate Professor Eric Hernandez was presented the Wiggans Innovation in Teaching Award.
Civil and Environmental Engineering Senior Lecturer Bree Mathon was presented with the Award for Excellence in Student Advising.
Computer Science Professor Laurent Hébert-Dufresne was presented the Excellence in Research Award.
Mathematics and Statistics Senior Lecturer Joan “Rosi” Rosebush was presented the Professional Service Award,.
Business Transaction & Operational Support Specialist Brianna Belleville was presented the Staff Award for Exceptional Citizenship.
Teaching Laboratory Coordinator Patrick Charron was presented with the Staff Award for Innovation and Creativity.
Please join us in congratulating our exceptional faculty and staff members who elevate the college, inspire us, and make a lasting impact on our students!
#CEMSAwards
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Congratulations to Laurent Hébert-Dufresne, a core faculty member of the Vermont Complex Systems Institute and a professor of Computer Science in the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences (CEMS), who has been awarded the 2026 Erdős–Rényi Prize by the Network Science Society (NetSci).
Widely regarded as the field’s top honor for early-career researchers, the Erdős–Rényi Prize is awarded annually to a young scientist for “outstanding achievements in network science and contributions to the interdisciplinary development of the field.”
The Network Science Society recognized Hébert-Dufresne for his “foundational contributions to the theory of contagion on complex networks, illuminating how network structure, higher-order interactions, and nonlinear transmission mechanisms shape the spread of diseases, behaviors, and ideas.”
The Erdős–Rényi Prize marks another major international recognition for Hébert-Dufresne, who earlier this year received the German Physical Society’s 2026 Young Scientist Award for Socio- and Econophysics.
Join us in congratulating Dr. Hébert-Dufresne on an exceptional year of well-earned recognition!
#VermontComplexSystemsInstitute #UVMComputerScience #NetSci
@universityofvermont@netsciconf
Congratulations to UVM Complex Systems Institute Director and Professor of Computer Science Peter Dodds and his team of researchers on a landmark new study that challenges decades of conventional thinking about how language works.
Published last week in Science Advances, the study reveals that human language isn’t primarily organized around emotion—as widely believed for more than 70 years—but instead around something even more fundamental: safety.
By analyzing billions of words across real-world texts, the researchers found that language consistently favors expressions associated with safety over danger, suggesting that communication may be deeply rooted in our need to navigate risk, signal stability, and support survival.
The team also introduces a new framework for understanding meaning—centered on power, danger, and structure—that significantly outperforms traditional models used across psychology, linguistics, and AI.
This work has far-reaching implications—not just for academic theory, but for how we design AI systems, interpret communication, and understand human behavior at scale.
Along with Dodds, who served as senior author, the study features contributions from an interdisciplinary group of UVM researchers, including postdoctoral fellow Julia Zimmerman; Assistant Professor of Computer Science Juniper Lovato; postdoctoral associate Shawn Beaulieu; VCSI data research engineer Michael V. Arnold; and Professor of Mathematics and Statistics Chris Danforth.
#UVM #Research #AI #Linguistics #Innovation #DataScience #HigherEd
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This past month, a team of eight undergraduate students in UVM’s American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) section travelled to the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando to compete in the ASME Electric and Human Powered Vehicle Challenge (eHPVC)—an engineering design and innovation competition that gives students the opportunity to network and apply engineering principles through the design, fabrication, and racing of human powered vehicles.
This year’s eHPVC squad—who is advised by ME associate professor Nic Fiorentino—included riders Ben Rodgers, Matt Rodgers, and Dan Mazzarese, who were supported by pit crew members Alex Zaccardi, Luke Ste. Marie, Morgan Barnes, Connor Kilduff, and Grafton Lyons.
In only their second year competing as a team, the students debuted a new e‑bike design they developed over the past year that benefited from lessons learned at last year’s competition. Upgrades to the e-bike’s design included a new lightweight carbon-fiber frame that featured an exceptionally low center of gravity to improve speed, acceleration, and handling.
Facing off against various ASME and senior design teams from colleges across the nation, the UVM team’s innovative new e-bike design proved its mettle, taking home 2nd-place finishes in both races to secure an impressive 2nd-place podium position in the overall competition.
• A high‑speed drag race to test the top-end speed and acceleration of the e-bike.
• A demanding endurance race with technical obstacles to test the e-bike’s durability, cornering ability, and overall speed
• A comprehensive design review focused on engineering, safety, and testing.
Despite being a competition, the event also fostered new inter-university friendships when the host team from UCF assisted the UVM crew with an emergency repair after an essential bracket broke between races.
Congratulations to all the team members on this impressive achievement! We’re excited to see where they place next year as they move forward with plans for an even stronger, more innovative design.
#UVM-ASME #UVM-eHPV
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Summer is the perfect time to invest in your future while enjoying the flexibility you need.
Check out this great selection of Summer U courses through UVM's College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences featuring a focus on Computer Science classes:
💻 Computer Programming I: Learn the fundamentals of algorithmic problem-solving and computer programming. This course provides a foundation for further studies in computer science.
📊 Intro to Data Science: Explore the basic techniques of data harvesting, cleaning, and visualization. You'll learn about association rules, classification, and clustering while analyzing and manipulating data with common programming languages.
🔒 Cybersecurity Principles: Gain an introduction to cybersecurity, including fundamental security design principles, programming flaws, malicious code, web and database security, cryptography algorithms, and hashing functions. You'll also get an overview of computer networks and common network threat vectors.
All courses are asynchronous, online, and available in the May or June session.
Whether you're looking to earn extra credits, explore new subjects, or strengthen your career prospects, summer courses offer an affordable and accessible way to stay ahead. With flexible schedules and 30% less tuition than the academic year, you can achieve your goals without compromising your summer plans.
Learn more each course and register using the link in our bio.
Please join us in congratulating Jihong Ma, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, on receiving a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award for her groundbreaking research in quantum-inspired vibration control.
Ma’s work explores how principles from quantum mechanics can help engineers better control vibrations in structures like bridges, aircraft, buildings, and even microelectronics—leading to safer, more resilient infrastructure and technologies. By studying vibrations as waves and designing advanced metamaterials that can localize and measure those vibrations in real time, her research could transform the future of dynamic control systems across industries.
The award recognizes exceptional early-career faculty who demonstrate outstanding leadership in both research and education. At UVM, Ma leads the Laboratory for Advanced Materials, where undergraduate and graduate students collaborate on cutting-edge interdisciplinary engineering research that bridges mechanics, materials science, and physics.
Congratulations to Professor Ma on this national recognition and exciting achievement!
#UVMCEMS #UVMMechanicalEngineering #UVMResearch #NSFCAREER
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Welcome, Anna Grunes (M.S. in Environmental Engineering ’25; B.S. in Environmental Engineering ’22), to the ranks of Fulbrighters! Anna has been granted a prestigious Fulbright research award to New Zealand.
A prolific researcher, Anna is a two-nominee and one-time winner (2021) of UVM’s Environmental Engineer of the Year award. As a UVM undergrad Anna was Vice President of Chicks on Sticks and a backcountry ski trip leader through the Outing Club.
Describing her Master's research on flood modeling, Anna wrote in her application, "I worked to contextualize this research across national and global research initiatives, presenting work at global conferences as well as working collaboratively with researchers from other universities and federal agencies. In addition to fellow scientists, I also engaged with recreational, operational, and student audiences. My interaction with stakeholders like the National Weather Service emphasized the importance of this work in the context of emergency management. This project offers a distinctive synergy between academia and public forecasting.”
Anna’s Fulbright research will improve scientists’ ability to predict rain-on-snow flooding events. “Vermont and Aotearoa New Zealand experienced highly destructive flood events in 2023 and 2022, respectively,” she wrote in her Fulbright proposal. “Both floods were unexpected due to inadequate prediction and unusual weather conditions, and they caused unusually severe destruction...Both Vermont and New Zealand have seen a large increase in flood risk due to their marginal snowpacks—characterized by warm winters, transient snowpacks, and mid-winter warming and runoff. Working with snow hydrologists in New Zealand on the same problem we face in Vermont will foster a meaningful international collaboration to address this shared issue. I will use both observational data and computer models to evaluate rain-on-snow flood severity across the South Island. This research will improve knowledge of rain-on-snow physics and inform flood forecasting models and warning systems in mountainous headwaters globally.”
Congratulations, @anna_grunes , and thanks for your good work!
Mechanical Engineering Senior Lecturer and the director of the Senior Experience in Engineering Design (SEED) capstone program, Keith Epstein, has been named as one of this year’s recipients of the prestigious Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Award.
The Awards recognize faculty members for their excellence in teaching undergraduate courses, including creating an environment conducive to and encouraging learning.
In the award announcement, Epstein was recognized for combining rigorous, practice-based learning with exemplary mentorship—an impressive accomplishment given that the two culminating ME/EE capstone design courses (ME 4010/EE 4100 Capstone Design I and ME 4020/EE 4200 Capstone Design II) have around 100 students enrolled in each.
The announcement went on to say that “Epstein cultivates real-world clients who pitch projects to students, forms teams based on interests, and guides them through year-long collaborative projects. He encourages student-driven syllabus policies, supports open communication, fosters conflict resolution and community-building, emphasizes growth mindsets and unique skills, scaffolds goal setting, and uses flexible rubrics.”
Join us in congratulating Keith on this impressive recognition!
#UVMFacultyAwards
Four CEMS students were recognized recently for papers entered into a competition sponsored by BAE Systems Think Tank program. Papers submitted by UVM physics students Will Rekas, Nate Younce, and Max Ritter, along with mechanical engineering student Alex Zaccardi were selected as being exemplary and received cash awards
BAE Systems Think Tank is an educational program in which the US division of the global technology corporation partners with universities to provide students an opportunity to highlight their technical and entrepreneurial skills by preparing a white paper in response to a set of proposed topics. Along with the cash prize, selected paper authors gain exposure to potential internship opportunities at BAE Systems.
The paper topic the UVM students were recognized for was “Revitalizing the US Semiconductor Industry: Innovative Solutions for Domestic Chip Manufacturing and Supply Chain Resilience.”
With their Electronics Systems division headquartered in nearby Nashua, NH. BAE Systems is a leading semiconductor design and fabrication facility specializing in advanced microelectronics, including the development of custom integrated circuits and high-performance chips for demanding technical applications.
Pictured with the students is electrical and computer engineering senior lecturer and director of the semiconductor curriculum, Tony Barsic, who helped organize and coordinate the program at UVM.
Thanks to BAE for supporting our students!
#BAESystemsThinkTank #UVM-CEMS
@universityofvermont@baesystemsinc
Right on cue!
Every year, the blooming rhododendrons outside Votey Hall herald the last day of classes and the coming commencement season. It has been an unforgettable semester so far, and we wish our amazing students the best with their upcoming exams and a well-earned summer break!
#UVMGRAD #CEMS #VermontSpring
For their last class of the semester, UVM’s Girls Who Code (GWC) club was treated to a morning of robotics demonstrations from graduate engineering students and faculty this past Saturday in Votey Hall.
First launched in 2017 by Computer Science senior lecturer Lisa Dion, UVM’s Girls Who Code club is part of an international nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing participation of women in computer science through educational programs spanning middle school through college. Despite the name, the club is open to all—boys are always welcome!
During this class, Electrical Engineering PhD students Soheyl Faghir Hagh and Parmida Amngostar shared hands-on examples of technologies they use and develop in Professor Tian Xia’s research lab, including a 3D-printed robotic arm simulator and a range of microelectronic sensors and devices.
From Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Alireza Fath, PhD student Yi Liu, and Professor Dryver Huston brought several engaging demonstrations, including a robotic dog, a HoloLens augmented reality (AR) headset with controllable miniature Hexbug-style robotic creatures.
The GWC club meets on campus every Saturday during the semester in a computer lab. Each semester’s lessons are organized around a central theme and led by a UVM undergraduate instructor.
#GirlsWhoCode #UVMComputerScience #UVMEngineering
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