Congrats to the CECS and CEHHS Medallion winners

From autonomous vehicle projects to creating tools to help the foster care system, top graduates from UM-Dearborn’s four colleges boast impressive records of service.

To honor these high-achieving students, three Dean’s Medallion awardees are chosen per college — 12 students overall — with one of those students selected to receive the Chancellor’s Medallion. These students will be recognized during the Dec. 21 commencement celebrations.

Here are the Fall 2024 College of Education, Health and Human Services and College of Engineering and Computer Science recipients.

The awardees from the College of Arts, Sciences and Letters and the College of Business are featured in this Reporter article.

Chancellor’s Medallion

Laura Sas

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Degree: Bachelor of Science in Engineering in electrical engineering
Awards, honors and distinction: Dean’s List (W22–W24), William J Branstrom Prize (2022), University Honors (2021–2023)
Scholarships: Dean's Scholarship, Henry Patton Scholarship

Academic achievements and internships: During summer 2023, Sas conducted research under the guidance of Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Hafiz Malik. She focused on automotive cybersecurity and worked on data acquisition of controller area network signals to fingerprint unique signals. This research was showcased at the 2023 Detroit Auto Show.

Sas’ project in the circuits course (ECE 210), which demonstrated how to activate an LED when it is dark outside, was showcased in the Project-Based Learning Showcase as part of the 2023 Senior Design Day. The project won the Outstanding PBL award. Sas served as a teaching assistant for Lecturer Azeem Hafeez, a research assistant in automotive cybersecurity with Malik, a graphic designer for CECS, and a student assistant at the Mardigian Library. During summer 2024, Sas was an electromagnetic compatibility intern at Tüv Süd.

Extracurricular and community projects: Intelligent Systems Club; Battery Workforce Challenge; Student Association for Filipino Americans; Swing Dearborn; Society of Women Engineers; mentor in Mentor Collective; Environmental Interpretive Center volunteer

Sas was a member of the Intelligent Systems Club all four years of her college career, beginning in Fall 2021. During that time, she has held multiple positions starting as an electrical member and working her way up to becoming the electrical lead and president of the club. She has worked on multiple robotics projects revolving around autonomous vehicles, including an autonomous snowplow, autonomous path navigator and autonomous go-kart. These projects have all gone to competition and won awards.

Sas was a member of UM-Dearborn’s Battery Workforce Challenge collegiate competition team. The three-year competition, hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy and Stellantis, challenges students to design, build, and integrate a battery pack into a Stellantis Ram ProMaster. Sas served as the team’s hardware lead during the Fall 2023 semester.

Future plans: Sas plans to pursue full-time employment as an electrical engineer after graduation.

Dean’s Medallion

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Andrew Ealovega

Degree: Bachelor of Science in computer and information science

Awards, honors and distinction: Dean’s List every semester since Fall 2020, James B. Angell Scholar (2022, 2023), University Honors (2020, 2022, 2023)

Scholarships: Dean's Scholarship (F20–W24); Michigan Competitive Scholarship (F20–W22)

Academic achievements and internships: Ealovega’s drive for academic excellence extends beyond the classroom. He worked as an undergraduate researcher and published a research paper as first author on "SensingBay: an Affordable Roadside Sensing System for Student Vehicle Competitions," at the 2023 IEEE 98th Vehicular Technology Conference.

As an active member of the Intelligent Systems Club, Ealovega immersed himself in the field of robotics, competing in three competitions and earning four awards. His leadership roles as software lead, chief engineer and treasurer of ISC speak to his technical expertise and ability to guide teams toward success.

More impressively, Ealovega has made it a priority to share his knowledge, organizing a class series on robotics and software, and creating an introductory autonomous vehicle course that is still in use today. The course has been offered every semester since Fall 2023 and ISC uses the course in onboarding all members to ensure all have a baseline level of robotics understanding. Ealovega had an internship with Toyota in Summer 2023 where he worked as an engineer on the Autonomous System Development division's tooling team.

Extracurricular and community projects: Intelligent Systems Club; Dearborn Swing 
As an active member of Dearborn Swing, Ealovega has taught several CECS students how to dance. Ealovega also helped MASA (rocketry team) with learning Kalman filters for their software package and advised Dearborn Electric Racing and Wolverine Racing with CAN and software development. In October 2022, he won the Best Beginner Hack at HackDearborn. Along with his team, Ealovega made a web app that used large language models to summarize politicians' views on a freeform user question. The app targets uninvolved voters to make it easier to research down-ballot candidates.

Future plans: Ealovega holds a full-time software engineer position working on Advanced Driver Assistance Systems at Toyota.

Reem Al-Tassi

Degree: Bachelor of Science in Engineering in mechanical engineering; certificate in energy and sustainability

Awards, Honors and Distinction: Dean’s List (F22–W24), University Honors (2022–2024), James B Angell Scholar (2024)

Scholarships: International Transfer Student Scholarship since Fall 2022; Lynn Bellenger Scholarship from ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) in 2024

Academic achievements and internships: Al-Tassi transferred to UM-Dearborn from the American University of Beirut in 2022. She was heavily involved on campus, supporting the success of other students in the College of Engineering and Computer Science and across the university. She was a supplemental instructor for two semesters and also a tutor at the Engineering Learning Center, where she contributed to the college’s first tutoring videos.

During summer 2023, Al-Tassi secured an internship at SmithGroup, where she helped in designing the ventilation system for a new General Motors building. She secured a second internship in summer 2024 at MAHLE, where she conducted computational fluid dynamics analysis on HVAC car modules while optimizing performance and airflow characteristics. 

Extracurricular and community projects: ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers); Society of Women Engineers

Al-Tassi’s passion for sustainability and HVAC has driven her involvement in ASHRAE where she has been volunteering in their events and learning from industry professionals since 2019. ASHRAE recently awarded Al-Tassi the Lynn Bellenger Scholarship for her leadership and academic excellence, which hundreds of applicants applied for worldwide. She was also on the Young Engineer Awards Committee for the ASHRAE Women in Engineering Symposium in Chicago. Currently, she is working with UM-Dearborn to start the first ASHRAE student branch to connect students to HVAC industry leaders, scholarships and career opportunities. 

Future Plans:  Al-Tassi plans on obtaining LEED certifications for green energy and earning her professional engineer license. She will continue seeking leadership roles in ASHRAE to be at the forefront of the HVAC industry as a distinguished lecturer. After gaining some industry experience, she plans on pursuing a PhD to become a professor, as she has always been passionate about teaching. Reem hopes to inspire more young women in engineering.

College of Education, Health and Human Services

Paul R. Anderson 

Degree: Bachelor of Science in health and human services (human services concentration); minor in sociology

Awards, honors and distinction: James B. Angell Scholar (W24), UM-Dearborn Honors (W23–W24), Dean’s List (W23, S23, F23, W24, S24)

Academic achievements and internships: Anderson helped lead a health and human services capstone project on program evaluation. He worked with national nonprofit Foster Love, designing an auditing tool for the organization’s Family Fellowship college scholarship and mentorship program. The tool provides resources for children aging out of the foster system to attend and succeed in college.

For another one of his assignments, Anderson created an ArcGIS StoryMap on the American Indian Movement. His submission was one of the strongest presented in the class and is still used by his professor as an example.

Anderson began his academic career at UM-Dearborn, interested in pursuing work in child welfare. As he was exposed to more critical perspectives on the field and had his own experiences within it as a court-appointed special advocate, he decided that the best way to help children was to address the root causes of their vulnerability by pursuing a career in political social work.

Before attending UM-Dearborn, Anderson served in the Air Force for 26 years and retired honorably at the rank of senior master sergeant.  

Extracurricular and community projects: Anderson dedicated 140 hours as a court-appointed special advocate for four children in foster care, enabling the court to make informed decisions in the best interest of the affected family units. He has also volunteered with the St. Vincent and Sarah Fisher Center, tutoring adults seeking to acquire GEDs and adult education, and secure employment and promotions with the City of Detroit.

Future plans: Anderson is currently enrolled in the Master of Social Work program at the University of Michigan School of Social Work.

Sasha Karoline Kindred 

Degree: Bachelor of Science in health and human services (human services concentration); minor in women’s and gender studies; community-based leadership and development certificate

Awards, honors and distinction: William J Branstrom Prize (W23), Honors Scholar (W24), Dean’s List (F22–W24)

Academic achievements and internships: One of the first in her family to attend college, Kindred earned an associate degree along with her high school diploma at the age of 18. Undergraduate research has been a defining element of her educational experience. In Summer 2024, she participated in the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience program with her faculty mentor, Assistant Professor of Health and Human Services Finn Bell, on the Ypsi Farmers & Gardeners Oral History Project. The objective of this community-engaged archive is to enable socially and economically marginalized farmers and gardeners who live in and/or sell food in Ypsilanti to share their stories, wisdom and traditional agricultural practices with the public. Kindred’s contributions included a literature review on best interviewing and project design procedures in oral history fieldwork focused on decolonial and anticolonial frameworks and trauma-informed approaches, as well as co-authoring internal and external grant proposals. Most notably, Kindred co-presented information about the project at the Society for the Study of Social Problems Annual Meeting in Montreal, Canada.

Kindred has had the opportunity to participate in many internships and field-based learning experiences. Her most notable internship experience has been as a sustainable well-being intern for UM-Dearborn’s Planet Blue Ambassador program, a position she pursued due to her interest in exploring the connection between mental health and caring for the environment. 

In addition to her impressive slate of activities and academic achievements, Kindred also worked on two course redesigns, one of which will assist the Mardigian Library staff design website architecture for a StoryMap archive. She also participated in UM-Dearborn’s Inside-Out Prison Exchange program at Macomb Correctional Facility.

Extracurricular and community projects: President of Women in Learning and Leadership (WILL+); Public Health Society; Pride; Engaged Scholars; Wolverine Mentor Collective 

Kindred served as president of the voter registration student organization, Turn Up Turnout, in 2023-24. She has been active with Take Back the Night, a campuswide “Voter Registration Blitz” and a Black maternal health event. In addition, she has served as a volunteer coordinator for a campus community garden plot that provides fresh produce to the Student Food Pantry.

Future plans: Following graduation, Kindred hopes to find a job related to community health work while pursuing a Master of Social Work. Eventually, she would like to complete a PhD in social work or a similar field. 

Shannon Wronski 

Degree: Bachelor of Arts in mathematics studies (elementary education) 

Awards, honors and distinction: James B. Angell Scholar (W24), UM-Dearborn Honors (F22–W24), Dean’s List (F22–W24)

Scholarships: CEW+ Scholarship (Molly H. Dobson Scholar) (F23, W24), Pi Lambda Theta (F24)

Academic achievements and internships: In Winter 2023, Wronski mentored in a sixth grade classroom at Woodworth Middle School, where she worked in small groups helping students with math. She completed her reading practicum in a kindergarten classroom at William Ford Elementary, allowing her to observe classroom management and assist students. Wronski also provided reading lessons and worked one-on-one with students. Through her math methods course, Wronski made four visits to Clarenceville Middle School, where she worked with students in a sixth grade classroom and provided a number-strings lesson. She completed her student teaching at Salina Intermediate in a fifth-grade classroom in Fall 2024.

Through her science capstone course, Wronski created action plans using best practices to close achievement gaps. She focused one of the plans on problem-based learning and the other on game-based learning. Wronski utilized this research and technology to create a digital escape room.

A mother of four, Wronski is a returning student who transferred to UM-Dearborn from Henry Ford College.

Extracurricular and community projects: Wronski has volunteered as a math tutor in her eldest son’s class and with the PTA at her children’s elementary school.

Future plans: After gaining experience in managing a classroom,, Wronski hopes to pursue a master’s in education. She also intends to become certified to teach English as a second language.