ECLIPSE Interns Begin Their Terms at the Annual Meeting

Ten early career members of ASME have been selected to participate as the 2019-2020 class of the Society’s Early Career Leadership Intern Program to Serve Engineering (ECLIPSE) program, in which young members of  ASME learn how the Society works at the leadership level by serving with an ASME unit such as the Board of Governors, the Volunteer Orientation and Leadership Training (VOLT) Academy, or one of the ASME Sectors.

Although they officially begin their yearlong terms at the ASME Annual Meeting in Orlando, Fla., which begins today, the 10 new interns got their first taste of the ECLIPSE program last month when they took part in an orientation and a leadership workshop in Washington, D.C., on April 8. The interns also attended a reception and dinner with the Presidential Executive Director Team and the Board of Governors on April 7, as well as the Engineering Public Policy Symposium on April 9.

One of the new interns, Michael P. Brundage, Ph.D., will serve as the 2019-2020 ECLIPSE Intern for the Standards and Certification Sector. Dr. Brundage is an industrial engineer in the Informational Modeling and Testing Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where he leads the Knowledge Extracti on and Application for Manufacturing Operations project. Brundage received the ASME Old Guard Early Career Award in 2018 and was named as one of SME’s 2018 Class of 30 Under 30.

Vikrant Chiddarwar, the 2019-2020 ECLIPSE Intern for the History and Heritage Committee, is a senior engineer in the modeling and simulation department at Siemens PLM, where he has contributed to projects related to modeling and simulation-based analysis of thermal systems including engines, air conditioning, fuel systems and cooling systems for vehicle controls development. He has developed and validated various types of internal combustion engine models to perform predictive analytics and to support rapid development of engine controllers. The vice chair of the ASME Metro Detroit section since June 2017, Chiddarwar has also been active in the organization of FutureME Social Meetup events in the Detroit area.

One of the two new interns for the Technical Events and Content Sector, Reuben Fikreyesus, will spend his term working with the Petroleum Division. Hailing from Eritrea and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Fikreyesus works as a cost analyst for Canada Kuwait Petrochemical Corporation, where he is responsible for measuring, analyzing and reporting the cost and physical progress of a large greenfield petrochemicals facility. He became involved in ASME as a student at the University of Calgary, where he volunteered with ASME as a member of the Collegiate Council.

Lorna Holt, the 2019-2020 ECLIPSE intern for the ASME Board of Governors, is an Engineer I at SoCalGas in Los Angeles, where she is part of the gas engineering department. She is currently working on a variety of renewable biogas projects to develop the point of receipt and pipeline laterals for dairies and waste management facilities. She is a volunteer with K-12 outreach programs such as SWENext, the Boys & Girls Club of Hollywood’s Robotics Team, and STEM summer camps.

Oleg Levytskyy, the new ECLIPSE intern for the Group Engagement Committee, has served as a volunteer with the ASME Ontario Section since his graduation from Ryerson University in Toronto in 2015. His positions have included chair, vice chair and membership development representative with the Ontario Section as well as chair and secretary of the ASME student chapter at Ryerson University. He currently works as a manufacturing systems expert at Honda of Canada Mfg., overseeing the deployment, sustainment and progress of smart manufacturing technologies.

The 2019-2020 ECLIPSE Intern for the Public Affairs and Outreach Sector, Alexander Marrero-Laureano, is a supplier quality engineer at General Motors where he is responsible for suppliers in the chassis-steering, structures and suspension commodities. He is a member-at-large of ASME’s Student Section Enterprise, in which he previously served as student regional chair for Latin America and the Caribbean. Alexander joined ASME in 2009 as a student at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez and served as chair of the university’s student section.

Columbia Mishra, Ph.D., the new intern for the Student and Early Career Development Sector, is a senior thermal engineer in the Thermal Engineering & Innovation team at Intel Corp. Dr. Mishra had previously worked as a resolution enhancement technology design engineer at Intel developing numerical models for mask corrections in photolithography. She has served as topic chair for such ASME conferences as the International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition and the Summer Heat Transfer Conference and is active in the ASME Heat Transfer Division’s K-20 Computational Heat Transfer Committee.

Peter Oviroh, the 2019-2020 ECLIPSE Intern for the Diversity and Inclusion Strategy Committee, is a Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering science at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. His research is currently focused on creating an efficient and sustainable means for reducing energy costs through the development of an innovative biomimetic membrane for water desalination. Oviroh also has experience in project management and maintenance of telecom networks and infrastructures on a nationwide scale, leading successful Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) rollouts, and the design and installation of fiber optic networks.

Parisa Saboori, Ph.D., the other new ECLIPSE Intern for Technical Events and Content, will be working with the Bioengineering Division. Dr. Saboori is an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering at Manhattan College in New York whose research focuses on biomechanics with an emphasis on traumatic brain injury (TBI). Her experimental work includes mapping the subarachnoid space (SAS) with respect to trabeculae architecture, while her modeling work includes several studies with regard to brain injury and impact profiles. Prior her work in biomechanics research, Saboori worked for several years in the oil industry as a design engineer for oil field operation.

The new ECLIPSE Intern for the VOLT Academy, Antoine Sands, is a project manager in the engineering and construction department of Buckeye Bahamas Hub, a Buckeye Partners facility located in the Caribbean region. As project manager, Sands is responsible for providing safe, compliant, reliable and cost-effective project management for terminal construction projects through the initial feasibility, development, execution and startup phases of the project lifecycle. He currently serves as the vice president of the Bahamas Society of Engineers.