Mechanical Engineering student Mehdi Nikkhah Named The College of Engineering’s 2009 Outstanding Doctoral Student
BLACKSBURG, Va., Mar 23, 2009 --An outstanding student award is well deserved considering Mr. Nikkhah’s excellent academic performance, and paired with his scholarly and professional activities, and role as a graduate research assistant, he far exceeds his peers. For these reasons he also received the “Outstanding Graduate Student Leader” Award in 2008.
Nikkhah earned his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from AmirKabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic). He earned his second master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Villanova University in 2006. He joined VT MEMS lab in 2006 and currently is working under supervision of Dr. Masoud Agah, who describes Nikkhah as being extremely bright, inquisitive, serious, and a hard-working student whose performance in the VT MEMS Lab is outstanding.
Nikkhah’s research is focused on development of silicon-based microchips to detect rare breast cancer cells found in the presence of a large population of normal cells. “We believe that the outcome of this transformative research not only leads to the development of low-cost automated microsensor platforms for early cancer diagnosis, but it also advances the field of cell biology”, Nikkhah said. His accomplishments include a US patent issued in March 2007, four journal publications, eleven refereed conference papers and more than ten presentations in professional conferences.
In addition to academic achievements he has demonstrated a strong desire and initiative in community leadership activities. “Ever since my arrival at Tech, I have dedicated a significant portion of my time and energy to serve the community while at the same time maintaining high standards in my graduate studies,” he said. Currently he serves as the President of the Alpha Epsilon Lambda honor society at VT and chairs the Graduate Students Assembly (GSA) Fees committee. He was the Graduate Advisor and the President of the Iranian Student Association at VT during 2007-2008. During the time Mehdi served as the President of the society, along with his team, he organized several big cultural events with the objective of bridging the gap between Iranians and non-Iranians. He played a crucial role in Ms. Anousheh Ansari’s visit to the Virginia Tech campus and her remarkable speech to help in the Hokies healing process after the tragedy of April 16th. Around 500 people attended this exciting event.
The Graduate School will proudly recognize Mehdi Nikkhah’s outstanding achievements at the 2009 Graduate Award Banquet held March 26th 2009.