Alumni Updates
Chris Andraka ’13 CIEP/CHE started in
a new position as Division 1 Lead Engineer - Mixing at Continental Tire in Illinois.
Yldania Carrasco ’03 SIEP/ISE welcomed her 3rd child, Arianna Carrasco in
February 2014.
Kyle Chase ’12 GIEP/MCE was accepted to the University of South Carolina’s
International MBA program and will be
beginning in July.
In November (just after Colorado law
changed in October to recognize samesex marriage), Kaylen Haley ’03 GIEP/
BME married Kaylan Stinson URI ‘04.
She and her wife still live just outside
Denver, Colorado. Kaylen also took on a
new position within Covidien/Medtronic in
March as a Development Program Manager - her team is focused on developing
procedural solutions to improve the lives
of lung cancer patients.
Jarrod Pierce ’10 GIEP/MCE married
Sara Pierce in September 2013. Jarrod
lives in North Kingstown, RI and works at
Thermo Fisher Scientific in Franklin, MA.
Vice President of Engineering at Hennessy Industries (a division of Danaher).
At this year’s annual board meeting, we
welcomed three of our own alums to the
IEP advisory board: Eric Sargent ’03
GIEP/MCE, Meghan Soens ’05 SIEP/
BME/ELE, and Martha Ziolkowsky ’10
FIEP/OCE.
Alums and former IEP House residents
Christina Smith ’01 GIEP/MCE, Mike
Smith ’01 GIEP/ELE, and Filip Losowski ’09 GIEP/CVE recently came back to
celebrate the renaming of the IEP House
in honor of IEP founder John Grandin. In
a surprise ceremony during which the announcement was made official, Mike and
Filip both spoke about their transformative
experiences living in the house as students.
Director’s Notes
Matt Weis ’95 GIEP/MCE is currently
IEP House Named In Honor of Founder John Grandin
Dr. Sigrid Berka,
Executive Director
Dear Friends,
New board member Eric Sargent ’03 GIEP
is among those in attendance at the reception
honoring John Grandin following this year’s
board meeting.
Christina Smith ’01 GIEP and Mike Smith ’01
GIEP reminisce with John Grandin and Heidi Kirk
Duffy about their time living in the IEP House.
This winter, IEP students participated in J-Term study tours to Chile, France, and Germany.
International Engineering Program
University of Rhode Island
61 - 67 Upper College Road
Kingston, RI 02881
uri.edu/uriiep
Filip Losowski ’09 GIEP speaks at the John
Grandin IEP House naming ceremony.
J-Term Study Tours
Germany J-term students with chaperones
Anett Geithner (DAAD Lecturer), Shawna
Rambur (German Lecturer), Sigrid Berka, and
GIEP alums Erik Anderson (IAV) and William
Machado (University of Glasgow) at IAV in
Gifhorn.
Summer 2015 Volume 17 Issue 2
President Dooley and John Grandin welcome
Meghan Soens ’05 SIEP to the IEP board.
Taylor Spalt ’07 SIEP/MCE obtained a
Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from
Virginia Tech in November 2014. Dissertation title: “Constrained Spectral Conditioning for the Spatial Mapping of Sound.”
Taylor currently works for NASA Langley
Research Center in Virginia.
Ines Walther ’01-’02 TU-BS exchange
& ’03 URI masters in OCE welcomed
son Finn in July 2014. She started a new
job with the City of Stamford Engineering
Department in April 2015.
INTERNATIONAL
ENGINEERING
PROGRAM
Spanish IEPers in Chile participated in a sustainability course taught by Dr. Vinka Craver
at PUCV and visited a completely sustainable
home in Chimbarongo.
uri.edu/iep
facebook.com/uriiep
IEP students on the winter J-Term to France
visited Compiègne and Paris.
Greetings en route to this year’s ASEE
International Forum in Seattle where
I will present on the portfolio of shortterm international experiences we have
created through our January J-terms to
Chile, France, and Germany and how
these immersions benefit the long-term
IEP experience. From a new studentcentered model of the traditional
Germany Study Tour to the first Chile
and France J-terms, these wonderful initiatives all increase our younger
students’ preparedness for their year of
studying and interning abroad (see pics
on back page).
The year 2014-15 has seen a tremendous growth spurt of 15% in the IEP
to a total enrollment of 344 students,
resulting in the largest group of GIEP’s
ever to leave for Germany this Fall. I am
immensely grateful for a growing corps
of willing alums who lend me a helping
hand placing their younger peers in internships in their own companies – what
an immense mentoring network you
have created around the world!
I am excited to report that, along with
former gubernatorial candidate Clay
Pell and the director of international programs at the R.I. Commerce Corporation, Kathy Therieau, we have invited
three of our own to join and rejuvenate
our IEP Advisory Board: Eric Sargent
IEP founder and Executive Director Emeritus John Grandin was presented
with the new IEP House sign during a surprise ceremony in May.
GIEP ’03, Meghan Soens SIEP ’05, and
Martha Ziolkowsky FIEP ’10 will provide
valuable advice and strategic guidance
along with our more seasoned board
members in helping us manage the
growing IEP.
The icing on the cake concluding this
year’s Annual Advisory Board meeting
was a celebration at President Dooley’s
home coinciding with John Grandin’s
75th birthday on May 22nd. He received
a one-of-a-kind gift for the one-of-akind founder and developer of the IEP:
new signage renaming the IEP House
the “John Grandin IEP House.” What a
well-deserved and long overdue gift! The
record number of your comments and
likes on the IEP Facebook page speaks
volumes…
Also honored during the preceding
Commencement activities were board
members Rolf Schnelle, former Consul General of Germany in Boston and
Angus Taylor, President and CEO of
Hexagon Metrology North America who
both received honorary doctoral degrees
for their outstanding support of the IEP,
the College of Engineering, Arts & Sciences, and the cause of foreign language
education in the state.
Please take note of another big celebration to come: the IEP’s 30th Anniversary.
We hope to welcome many of our academic and corporate partners as well as
numerous alums from around the world
to the Kingston campus in late Spring
2017 (date TBD)....
Wishing you my very best for a good
summer!
--Sigrid Berka
IEP Internship Placements 2015
IEP Directors made 45 international internship placements in 2015, our largest group to date. As of 1990, over 550 students have
completed internships through the International Engineering Program. See below for the list of where this year’s interns landed:
Chinese IEP
Chris Kardaras (Political Sci.)
Alex Lam
Sam LeBlanc
Kaitlynn von Dettum (IBP)
Chinese
Alyssa Zisk
Mechanical Eng.
French
Hicham Benjelloun
Mechanical Eng.
Jonathan YoungMechanical Eng.
Insigma HengTian (Hangzhou, China)
Offshore Pipelines & Risers (Hangzhou, China)
Sentinel Tech (Tianjin, China)
Insigma HengTian (Hangzhou, China)
French IEP
Kelsey Conahan
Medincell (Jacou, France)
Arielle De Souza
CEREMA (Compiègne, France)
Amanda Junkins
Medincell (Jacou, France)
Patrick Moran
Bouygues Construction (Marseille, France)
Katie Noonan
École des Hautes Êtudes en Santé Publique (Rennes, France)
Congratulations, 2015 Grads!
Meyer Werft in Papenburg, Germany, where
Patrick McNamara and Conor O’Neil interned
building cruise ships.
German IEP
Boris Babic (IBP)
Ian Calise
Joseph Furdon
Max Gutierrez
Lucas Hanson
Lucas Hohl-Marchetta
Bryce Holden
Paul Kintz
Ian Mace
Kevin Matthews
Patrick McNamara
Jacob Ohrnberger
Conor O’Neil
Matthew Polak
Nastasja Rittling
Joseph Rocchio
Sarah Steinchen
Joseph Sullivan
Riley Tuttle
Elizabeth Wynn
VW (Wolfsburg, Germany)
Bayer (Leverkusen, Germany)
IAV (Gifhorn, Germany)
Maurer Söhne (München, Germany)
DB Schenker (Mainz, Germany)
Beinbauer Automotive (Büchlberg, Germany)
Joseph Sullivan in front of the visbreaker at BP
Bosch (Stuttgart, Germany)
Mineralöl GmbH in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.
DB Systel (Frankfurt, Germany)
ZF (Friedrichshafen, Germany)
IAV (Gifhorn, Germany)
Meyer Werft (Papenburg, Germany)
Bayer (Leverkusen, Germany)
Meyer Werft (Papenburg, Germany)
Continental (Hannover, Germany)
Siemens (München, Germany)
BASF (Ludwigshafen, Germany)
Osram Opto Semiconductors (Regensburg, Germany)
BP Mineralöl (Gelsenkirchen, Germany)
IAV (Gifhorn, Germany)
Bayer (Leverkusen, Germany)
Spanish IEP
Norman Blanchard
Katie Brown
Aaron Brunelle
Raul Chacon
Jack Clark
Max Grabinski
Jessica Havas
Patricia Hogan
Bradley Leusner
Jennifer McGunigal
Sean Marran
Cara Nunez
Nicole Nunez
Marcos Rodriguez
Nelson Shepard
BASF Chile (Concón, Chile)
NBC (Curauma, Chile)
CREG Catalysis (Zaragoza, Spain)
SEAT S.A. (Barcelona, Spain)
Puerto Ventanas (Quintero, Chile)
Pedelta (Barcelona, Spain)
NBC (Curauma, Chile)
Arup (Madrid, Spain)
Geotecnía Ambiental (Valparaíso, Chile)
Hope Global (León, Mexico)
Hope Global (León, Mexico)
Vademecum (Madrid, Spain)
SEAT S.A. (Barcelona, Spain)
SEAT S.A. (Barcelona, Spain)
Pedelta (Barcelona, Spain)
Katie Brown and Jessica Havas
at Núcleo Biotecnología Curauma
(NBC) in Curauma, Chile.
German
Jonathan AguireMechanical Eng.
Jordan Barlow
Mechanical Eng.
Kenneth Betzold
Electrical Eng.
Thomas Cottam
Mechanical Eng.
Steven Dupre
Mechanical Eng.
Jack Heaslip
Mechanical Eng.
Matthew Hooks
Computer Eng.
Daniel Kaehler
Mechanical Eng.
Tabitha Koehn
Electrical Eng.
Eli Lamothe
Mechanical Eng.
John Leach
Mechanical Eng.
Kyle MacKenzie
Computer Eng.
Ryan Michaels
Mechanical Eng.
Jonathan Morasutti
Ocean Eng.
Stephen Pelletier
Mechanical Eng.
Johann Prieto
Mechanical Eng.
Jacob Rooney
Mechanical Eng.
Nicholas Zonfrillo
Chemical Eng.
Left: Spanish IEP grad
Dana Demers (center)
with Dr. Sigrid Berka
and Dean Raymond
Wright.
Above (L-R clockwise): 2015 German IEP grads Eli Lamothe,
Johann Prieto, Steve Pelletier, Jacob Rooney, Jack Heaslip,
Tabitha Koehn, Katie Topp, Kyle MacKenzie, Tom Cottam, and
Ryan Michaels.
Spanish
Kenneth Betzold
Nicholas Bodell-Kudla
Michael Caneja
Chris Capuano
Nicholas Crowley
Jessica Damicis Luis De Cardenas
Dana Demers Kevin Drumm
Umutoni Amandine Gatali
Erik Simpanen
Michael Smith
Preston Steele
Electrical Eng.
Mechanical Eng.
Electrical Eng.
Mechanical Eng.
Electrical Eng.
Civil Eng.
Civil Eng.
Biomedical Eng.
Mechanical Eng.
Civil & Environmental Eng.
Biomedical Eng.
Ocean Eng.
Biomedical Eng.
IEP Affiliates
Patrick Mullen (German IBP)
Marcos Rodriguez (Spanish IBP)
Katie Topp (German & Anthropology)
Sarah Watson (German IBP)
Honorary Degree Recipients
Congratulations to two of our IEP Advisory Board members, who were
awarded honorary doctoral degrees this May:
Rof-Dieter Schnelle, former Consul General of Germany in Boston and IEP
board member emeritus, received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters
degree from the University of Rhode Island for his fabulous support (most
notably securing a sizable grant from the Germany Ministry of Economics and
Labor) and his continued educational collaboration with the program (e.g., in
terms of trans-Atlantic scholarships, and our annual J-term trips to Berlin).
Pedelta intern Max Grabinski reinforcing
a bridge in Barcelona, Spain.
Angus Taylor, CEO of Hexagon Metrology and IEP board member, received
an honorary Doctor of Business degree from the University of Rhode Island.
We thank him for his great advocacy for the College of Engineering during
the bond marketing phase, his company’s strong record of recruiting College
of Engineering and IEP graduates, and his advocacy for the IEP and foreign
language education in R.I.
Left to right: Rolf-Dieter Schnelle, Provost DeHayes,
Angus Taylor, Dean Wright.