The NAMF Student Award was established to encourage, recognize and reward students for quality research in the area of mixing. Any graduate or undergraduate student doing research in the field of Fluid Mixing at an accredited University in North America is eligible.
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The NAMF Student Award was established to encourage, recognize and reward students for quality research in the area of mixing.
Eligibility
Any graduate or undergraduate student doing research in the field of Fluid Mixing at an accredited University in North America is eligible.
Previous contestants and finalists for this award may compete again with normal eligibility for travel expenses and conference registration fees if selected as a finalist. Previous winners are not eligible.
Students who submit abstracts in response to the abstract request for the NAMF Biennial Conference are eligible to participate. Note that even if the student is not selected as a finalist for the Student Award, the abstract may still be selected for the conference by the NAMF Conference Committee.
Work that has been previously published in a refereed journal may be used as a basis for the paper submitted for the competition.
A Student who graduates in the year prior to the NAMF conference can enter the Student Award competition. For example, a student graduating in 2017 may enter the competition being adjudged at the Mixing XXVI conference in 2018.
Procedure
a) Format
An applicant must submit a paper as for a journal publication in electronic form describing his or her work in the field of mixing.
Applicants should use the Instructions given for submitting papers to the AIChE Journal as guidance on the format, length, requirement for figures etc. A typical submission would be 20 pages, single-spaced including figures.
Relevant video files of experiments and/or CFD animations may be included as references in the paper.
b) Submission
The applicant must submit the paper electronically as a PDF to the Chair of the Education Committee, Sujit Bhattacharya (Bhattacharya.Sujit@syncrude.com). The deadline for submission is Monday, 26th February 2018.
c) The Competition
The submitted papers will be marked by a Committee of Judges consisting of industrialists working in the field of mixing. The Committee will normally consist of five or more judges and the Chair. A list of potential Committee members is maintained by the Chair. Judges will be invited by the Chair at least a month before the deadline for submission as outlined here. In case the number of submissions is more than five, not all judges will mark every paper. The Chair will select and send up to five papers to each judge. However, at least two judges and the Chair will mark all submitted papers. The details of the marking procedure are detailed in section ‘Marking Scheme’ below.
On completion of marking, the Chair will compile a list of marks and call a meeting of the Committee. After discussions on the merits of each candidates, the Committee will decide upon the final marks and select, by consensus, three candidates with the highest marks as the finalists. It is the responsibility of the Chair to send invitations by email to the three finalists to present their paper during the biennial NAMF Conference. The awards to the finalists will be discussed in the section on ‘Awards’. The Chair will also inform the Organizer of the biennial NAMF Conference the names of the finalists and the title of their papers. The Organizer will assist the finalists with documentation for applying for Visa, if required.
The Committee will also select the candidates with the fourth and the fifth highest marks as Runners-Up. These candidates qualify to present posters during the biennial NAMF Conference. The remunerations of these candidates are discussed in the section on ‘Awards’ below.
In case less than three papers are submitted for the competition, the Chair and select members of the Education Committee can decide at their discretion to invite all or none of the candidates to present their papers during the Conference.
During the Conference, the Presentations of the finalists are marked by another Committee consisting of at least five judges selected by the Chair, and the Chair himself or herself. At least three judges, apart form the Chair, will consist of persons who have already marked the papers. The Chair will select the candidate with the highest mark, as per the Marking Scheme, in consultation with the judges.
Marking Scheme
Papers submitted by the candidates will be marked on the basis of the following four criteria. The weight for each criterion is shown below in brackets:
- Theory and Fundamentals (30%)
- Clarity of analysis and writing (30%)
- Industrial potential (20%)
- Novelty of work (20%)
The presentations of the three finalists will be marked on the basis of:
- Quality of presentation
- Ability of the candidate to explain concepts
- Quality of answers provided to audience questions at the end of the presentation
50 % weight will be given to the marks obtained in the corresponding paper.
Awards
Awards will be given to winner of the competition, the candidates with the second and third highest marks and two additional runners-up as follows:
a) Awards for the Winner (1):
- Travel to and from the conference
- Conference registration fees
- $500 cash award
- Plaque
b) Second and Third places (2):
- Travel to and from the conference
- Conference registration fees
- $200 cash award
C) Runners Up (2):
- Conference registration fee
- Slot in Poster Sessions in the Conference
All finalists will receive copies of Advances in Industrial Mixing. Registration includes shared accommodation and all meals.
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Award recipients
- 2016 – Bruno Blais, Ecole Polytechnique Montreal
- 2014 – Alexandra Komrakova, hired a year later as Assistant Professor by the Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Alberta, Canada
- 2012 – Paul Rueger, University of Maryland
- 2010 – Justin Walker, University of Maryland
- 2007 – Clara Gomez, University of British Columbia
- 2005 – Gustavo Padron, University of Maryland
- 2003 – Maria Soledad Córdova-Aguilar, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
- 2001 – Vesselina Roussinova, University of Alberta
- 1999 – none
- 1997 – Genwen Zhou, University of Alberta
