4/8/2013 Written by Susan Mumm
Written by Written by Susan Mumm
AE undergraduate Joseph Gonzalez has been selected as the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers’ National Student Role Model of the Year.
SHPE’s highest honor for a student member, the STAR award recognizes academic excellence and outstanding contributions to the student SHPE chapter and the Hispanic community at large. The recipient, as an active SHPE member, brings honor and esteem to the Society through academic achievement, community service, and leadership.
Gonzalez, president of the local student chapter, will be presented the award during the 2009 SHPE Conference to be held from October 28 to November 1 in Washington, D.C. The SHPE Conference is the largest Hispanic technical conference in the nation, with approximately 5,000 attendees expected.
“Receiving this great honor acknowledges the sacrifice and passion that my peers, faculty and family have invested in molding me into the person I am today,” Gonzalez said. “It feels great to be recognized as a role model, and it won’t stop there. I will continue giving back to the community, inspiring others and promoting the development of underrepresented students.”
Gonzalez entered the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign like many other Hispanic students – somewhat unprepared and with little knowledge of what the engineering field required. As a freshman he played saxophone in the concert band and was an outfielder for the club baseball team. He soon adjusted priorities to focus on academic and leadership opportunities.
His professional development began with joining Illinois’ student SHPE chapter, initially as a member of the Freshmen Roundtable. The following year, Gonzalez stepped up to become chairman for high school outreach and promote higher education among minority youths. In this role, he reworked the visitation program to give incoming freshmen a real campus experience, which yielded a 100 percent attendance rate at Illinois for the participating students in the program. During his most recent term as external vice president, he nearly doubled company contacts and acquired more than $25,000 in sponsorships to send 51 members to the 2008 SHPE Conference.
In 2008, Gonzalez’s technical interests led him to join the “Floatin’ Illini” research team, where he explored the potential for studying Venus Flytrap behavior in microgravity conditions and proposed a flame propagation testing method. Earlier this year, he conducted research on the effects of inhomogeneities on the fracture of polyethylene. AE Prof. John Lambros, doesn’t usually accept juniors into his research group but decided to advise Gonzalez. “(Joseph’s) clear dedication to the subject of mechanics, his excellent performance in advanced classes, and his desire for further studies made me agree to take him on as an undergraduate researcher for the spring 2009 semester,” Lambros said. Through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, Gonzalez continued the research during the summer of 2009.
Overall, Gonzalez held nearly a 3.9 GPA as a junior, usually the toughest year of the aerospace engineering program. Upon graduation, he plans to pursue a master’s degree with the ultimate goal of working for NASA as a mission engineer.