May ’26 ASPIRE Student Section
Welcome to our ASPIRE Student & Faculty Highlights!
In this section we share upcoming events, celebrate your successes, and highlight your research and hard work. Check out our ASPIRE student, faculty, and staff members’ most recent accomplishments!
Congrats to Our Spring Graduates!
Bachelor’s:
Mackay Baugh, USU
Ethan Black, USU
Jacob Cordon, USU
Brooklyn Danner, USU
Spencer Daines, USU
Cayden Leary, USU
Kayleigh Kearsley, USU
Zac Maughan, USU
Joshua Merrel, USU
JT Miller, USU
Ethan Moser, USU
Brittany Piquet, USU
Joshua Taggart, USU
Matthew Shawgo, USU
Master’s:
Jaron Bono, USU
Lyndsey Harris, Purdue
Sarangi Jayaram, Purdue
Forrest Nichols, USU
Ali Tasavvaori, UoU
Ph.D:
Gaia Cervini, Purdue
Bruno Cesar Krause Moras, Purdue
Kenny Chandra Wijaya, Purdue
Mayank Chawla, USU
Travis Newbolt, USU
Sanat Poddar, USU
Fariba Soltani, USU
Student Highlights:
Congratulations to Oscar Moncada, who received the Innovation and Creativity Award at this year’s Civil Engineering Graduate Student Advisory Council Graduate Symposium at Purdue University. Mentored by Pablo Orosa Iglesias, Oscar received this award for his poster presentation at the symposium.
Oscar also had a study, “Mechanical Performance of Rigid Pavement with Embedded DWPT Technology: A Simulation-Based Assessment,” which was published in Transportation Geotechnics and is available here.
Keep up the great work!
Shoutout to Travis Newbolt, who was selected as the Outstanding Graduate Student for the University of Texas at El Paso’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. He received his award at the 2026 Honors Convocation.
Travis also successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on April 21.
Congratulations on your accomplishment!
We’d also like to recognize Gaia Cervini for successfully passing her Ph.D. dissertation defense titled, “Temperature as a System Constraint in Transportation Electrification: Vehicle Adoption, Infrastructure Performance, and Thermal Measurement.”
We’d also like to recognize Forrest Nichols, who defended his master’s thesis on April 24, as well as Mayank Chawla, who successfully defended his thesis on April 27.
Congratulations to Ava Watson and Chiara Cervini who presented their research at the Western Political Science Association conference in San Diego. Their poster presentation, “Exploring Political Dimensions of Public Perceptions on Electrified Transportation Technology in Greater Lafayette, Indiana,” originated from their research started during the 2025 ASPIRE REU Program.
Student Events
Congratulations to the ASPIRE students who presented at the Utah State University 2026 Spring Student Research Symposium on April 7-8! Follow the links below to learn more:
- ASPIRE Student Presentations
- Mahmoud Ali’s Research on In-Motion Charging
- Cameron Hill’s Discoveries of Underused Parking
- Bridger Porter’s Research on EV Consumers
Congratulations again to these students!
We’d also like to recognize the ASPIRE seniors who presented their Senior Design Projects at Utah State University on April 28. These projects represent over 400 hours of work!
We had eight students presenting as individuals or with groups:
- Zac Maughan: “Bipedal RL Walking Robot”
- Ethan Moser: “E-Ink Cards”
- Matthew Shawgo: “Hybrid-Motor Differential”
- Joshua Taggart: “Mini Self-Driving Car”
- Spencer Daines and Jacob Cardon: “University Rover Challenge – Deimos”
- Ethan Black: “USU BAJA SAE”
- Joshua Merrell: “Next Generation Whips”
Congratulations again to these students!