Here are the CECS AND CEHHS Medallion winners

Top graduates from the College of Engineering and Computer Science and College of Education, Health and Human Services boast impressive records of service, from helping to design a machine-learning model that monitors Rouge River wildlife to developing a Google Classroom-based learning management system that organizes lessons and creates student assessments.

To honor the university’s high-achieving students, three Dean’s Medallion awardees are chosen per college each semester — with one of these students selected to receive the Chancellor’s Medallion. This semester, CEHHS graduate Kimberly Bertges earned the Chancellor’s Medallion.

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

Here are the Fall 2025 CECS and CEHHS recipients.

Chancellor’s Medallion

College of Education, Health and Human Services

Kimberly Bertges

Degree: Bachelor of Science in health and human services, human services concentration; minor in criminology and criminal justice

Awards, Honors and Distinction: Dean’s List (F24, W25); University Honors (F24, W25); James B. Angell Scholar (2025); member of Alpha Sigma Lambda and Phi Theta Kappa honor societies

Scholarships: MI Fostering Futures Scholarship; Phi Theta Kappa Transfer Scholarship; Destination Blue Scholarship

Academic Achievements and Internships: Bertges collaborated with faculty, students and community organizations on research projects, including program planning for the Michigan Ovarian Cancer Alliance; an HHS 410 project titled “Insight Into the Complex Nature of Marital Dependency and Its Implications for Mental Health;” a mini-literature review on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; and a StoryMap project titled “Vanishing Biodiversity: A Looming Threat to Food Security.” Additionally, Bertges participated in the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program with Professor of History Anna Müller as part of the criminology and criminal justice minor, where she participated in a creative reinterpretation of themes in “Othello,” “Oedipus Rex,” “Fences” and “Desdemona.”

Bertges was one of the first graduates of a Henry Ford College transfer agreement that enabled her to earn her Associate of Applied Science in social work and counseling technician and then her Bachelor of Science in health and human services with a human services concentration. Bertges completed her studies at UM-Dearborn in just three semesters. “Kimberly is a strong student who has overcome obstacles and always tries harder when met with challenges,” observed Health and Human Services Lecturer Samantha Hallman.

Extracurricular and Community Projects: Girl Scouts leader; weekly Dearborn Support volunteer; Wolverine Mentor to 12 students; member of the Criminology and Criminal Justice Collective, First Gen Student Org, TRIO and SOAR; parent-teacher association member in multiple Livonia public schools

Future Plans: After graduation, Bertges plans to pursue employment in foster care or correctional rehabilitation. Drawing from her own experiences in the foster care system and her academic background in human services and criminology and criminal justice, she is committed to advocating for system-involved individuals. Bertges intends to take a gap year to gain additional professional experience before pursuing graduate studies, with the long-term goal of creating meaningful change that supports those whose voices often go unheard.

Dean’s Medallion

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Owen Gill

Degree: Bachelor of Science in Engineering in mechanical engineering 

Awards, Honors and Distinction: Dean’s List (F21-F25); University Honors (F22-W24); James B. Angell Scholar (2023-2025) 

Scholarships: Gill was awarded the James and Geraldine Poe Research Assistantship for the 2024-25 academic year. Only two such assistantships are granted annually to undergraduate students in the Department of Mechanical Engineering to support faculty-guided research projects.

Academic Achievements and Internships: Gill completed two undergraduate research projects under the guidance of Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Rafael Ruiz, focusing on the development and testing of mechanical suture joint mechanisms. The results were presented at the Fall 2024 Summer Undergraduate Research Experience Showcase. Currently, Gill works in Prof. Ruiz’ research lab, collaborating on projects involving polycatenane metamaterials, joint geometries and the non-destructive evaluation of hydrogel mechanical properties. Since May 2023, Gill has also worked part time as a co-op intern at Maxion Wheels, and he helps run his family’s automotive repair shop. In Fall 2025, Gill was selected as one of five CECS students to attend the Management Briefing Seminars organized by the Center for Automotive Research at Michigan Central Station in Detroit. He was also a member of the senior design team that received Honorable Mention in the Winter 2025 CECS Senior Design Competition. 

Extracurricular and Community Projects: Since 2023, Gill has been a member of MASA-Dearborn, the university’s rocketry club, and served as one of the technical team leaders. He led the boat tail design team, working to reduce aerodynamic drag, and has presented results at four technical design reviews to faculty and alumni. He also served as a tutor at the Math Learning Center in Fall 2023 and Winter 2024, tutoring Calculus I-III, Differential Equations and Linear Algebra. Gill has volunteered for various activities, including open labs for prospective students and with Forgotten Harvest. 

Future Plans: Gill is currently enrolled in the 4+1 program and plans to complete his MSE in mechanical engineering at UM-Dearborn. He is in the process of being hired as a full-time engineer at Maxion Wheels. His career goals include gaining expertise in advanced powertrain engineering and joining the research and development team at Cummins. Alternatively, he is considering pursuing a PhD at UM-Dearborn and a future in research and academia.

Vlad Nitu

Degree: Bachelor of Science in computer and information science, information systems concentration

Awards, Honors and Distinction: University Honors (F22-W25), William J. Branstrom Freshman Prize, James B. Angell Scholar (2024, 2025)

Scholarships: Excellence Scholarship (2022-2025)

Academic Achievements and Internships: As part of his Senior Design project, Nitu worked with the Friends of the Rouge to design a machine learning model and architecture to determine frog species based on their recorded calls, map their location and then save all data to a database. He also contributed to the development of an AI-based app that uses the model. This helps Friends of the Rouge volunteers to streamline their ecological monitoring in the Rouge River area, as well as easily and efficiently gather and store data. He also took part in the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience and researched active learning methods, where an AI model can select the most informative data, maximizing performance while keeping the amount of data minimal. The project also involved filtering out incorrect noisy labels based on loss and autonomously fixing them using similarity measures. This project, presented at the 2025 SURE Showcase, showed promise for cost-efficient means of training machine learning models that can handle potentially inaccurate data. Nitu continued this work into his final semester with the aim of publication.

“Vlad demonstrated exceptional research maturity during his work on the SURE project,” observed Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Science Srijita Das, who was Nitu’s SURE faculty mentor. “He quickly grasped advanced concepts  and complemented this understanding with effective hands-on implementation of research ideas. His contributions have enabled us to make significant progress toward addressing an important challenge: building machine learning models from less data while handling annotation errors — issues that frequently arise in domains such as computer vision and natural language processing. This work will be submitted soon in an esteemed conference for publication.”

Extracurricular and Community Projects: MASA-Dearborn rocketry club, Artificial Intelligence Club, computer science tutoring, Forgotten Harvest volunteer 

Serving as this year’s lead for the dashboard project of MASA-Dearborn, Nitu worked on and led a team that created a program to display the trajectory and all data streamed from a rocket in real time as it transmits sensor readings during its flight. The program will be utilized at the 2025 International Rocketry Engineering Competition. The previous year’s work focused specifically on aggregating GPS and altimeter data for a real-time 3D trajectory visualization. 

Future Plans: Nitu hopes to continue in the field of artificial intelligence development and research, designing novel and efficient means of using AI to help people and companies.

Nicholas Wheelock 

Degree: Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering 

Awards, Honors and Distinction: University Honors (F23-W25); Honors Scholar (2024); James B. Angell Scholar (2025)

Scholarships: Battery Workforce Challenge BattScholar

Academic Achievements and Internships: Wheelock served as a teaching assistant for ECE 210 and ECE 3731 under Lecturer Azeem Hafeez for two years, and developed instructional videos for ECE 480 and ECE 450 under Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Selim Awad. He worked as a drone research assistant on brushless DC electric motor applications under Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Taehyung Kim, supported by a National Science Foundation grant. As hardware team lead for the Battery Workforce Challenge in the first year of the three-year competition, Wheelock helped his team achieve a Top 3 ranking in a national deliverable competition. In summer 2024, he interned at Stellantis as a charging and power moding calibration intern. 

Future Plans: Wheelock is currently an electronics engineer at Ambient Biosciences, specializing in firmware development. He is also pursuing a Master of Science in electrical engineering with a focus in embedded systems at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. 

College of Education, Health and Human Services

Dalya Dakroub

Degree: Bachelor of Science in health and human services, public health concentration

Awards, Honors and Distinction: James B. Angell Scholar (2024, 2025); University Honors (F22-W25); Dean’s List (F22-W25); All-NAIA Scholar Athlete Award (2024, 2025); All-District Academic Team, College Sports Communicators (2024, 2025); Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference All-Academic Team (2024, 2025); Chi Alpha Sigma Award, National College Athlete Honor Society (2025) 

Academic Achievements and Internships: Dakroub served as treasurer and public relations officer of the Pre-Physician Assistant Association at UM-Dearborn, where she managed budgets and events, supported members through application cycles to physician assistant programs, and fostered inclusivity and unity within the organization.

Extracurricular and Community Projects: Captain, UM-Dearborn Women’s Soccer Team (W24-F25); volunteer, Zayn Initiative; volunteer, Orphans Overseas Foundation 

Future Plans: Dakroub graduated in Summer 2025 and applied to physician assistant programs, with the goal of beginning studies in 2026. She plans to pursue a career as a physician assistant in orthopedic and sports medicine at the University of Michigan Health System, helping athletes return to play and improving quality of life for patients of all ages. Dakroub also hopes to work in emergency medicine before transitioning to orthopedic sports medicine, incorporating her background in public health and health and human services to address the physical, mental and environmental needs of her patients and improve public health outcomes.

Saba Elmaweri

Degree: Bachelor of Arts in elementary education, concentrations in pre-kindergarten to third grade and third to sixth grade

Awards, Honors and Distinction: Honors Scholar (2024); University Honors (W24); Dean’s List (W23-F24); member, Society for Collegiate Leadership and Achievement; Spirit of SOAR Award (2024); Henry Ford College Dean’s List (2018-2021); Phi Theta Kappa scholar (2018-2025); Alpha Sigma Lambda honor member (2024)

Scholarships: Daniel Little and Bernadette Lintz Endowed Scholar (2025-2026); Moreland Family Annual Scholar; CEW+ Molly H. Dobson Scholar (2024-2025)

Academic Achievements and Internships: Elmaweri completed several undergraduate projects, including a learning management system design using Google Classroom to organize lessons and create assessments to encourage and evaluate student learning; creation of integrated curricula by designing interdisciplinary lessons, leading to greater engagement and understanding; a metacognition project; and a child maltreatment project. She completed Apprenticeship I, part of the initial teacher preparation program, at William Ford Elementary with Mrs. Hamm (kindergarten) and Mrs. Lutteke (fifth grade); Apprenticeship II at Thorne Elementary with Mrs. Shepherd (first grade) and Mrs. Allen (fifth grade); practicum at Salina Intermediate with Mrs. Kolin (pre-school); and a service learning project at the UM-Dearborn Early Childhood Education Center with Mrs. Schimm.

Extracurricular and Community Projects: Dearborn Public Schools Parent Teacher Association secretary and event organizer; William Ford Elementary, Geer Park Elementary and Salina Elementary Parent Teacher Association volunteer; volunteer testing proctor for Dearborn Public Schools; parent volunteer for Dearborn Public Schools; SOAR member and peer mentor; local charity organizer

Future Plans: With her elementary education degree, Elmaweri plans to advocate for fair access to education and culturally responsive teaching methods. She is committed to fostering inclusive learning environments that celebrate diversity and encourage global thinking. Elmaweri intends to collaborate with educators worldwide, participate in conferences, and engage with online educational communities to share insights and contribute to global educational progress.