Today during the opening of the Academic Year at the University of Twente the graduation awards were presented to the best graduates of the UT's five faculties. Mariska van Essen (CTW faculty), Babatunde Joseph Fagbohun (ITC faculty), Sjoerd Geevers (EEMCS faculty), Mirjam Peek (TNW faculty) en Job Quint (BMS faculty) wrote the best master's thesis of their faculty. Rector Magnificus Ed Brinksma presented the five students with certificates and cheques worth a thousand euros. The UT uses this award to reward excellent students for their performance. During the meeting the Central Education Award is also presented, the award for the best teacher of the University of Twente. The recipient of this award is Erwin Hans.
Mariska van Essen
Van Essen, who completed the Civil Engineering and Management master's programme, received the award for the development and evaluation of a route selection model. She graduated on this subject in 2014. Van Essen performed her graduation work at the renowned Virginia Tech Transport Institute in the United States. Her master's thesis was rewarded with a 9. Her thesis supervisor on site, Prof. Hesham Rakha, says that Van Essen belongs to the top five per cent of best students he has supervised during his entire career. After graduation Van Essen started work as a research assistant at the Centre for Transport Studies of the UT. She is working on research that closely connects to her master's thesis.
Babatunde Joseph Fagbohun
Fagbohun, who completed the Applied Earth Sciences master's programme, investigated the geology of a study area in Nevada in the United States. He did this with the help of several types of infrared images made from the sky. Fagbohun managed to provide a clear overview of his study area, improving geologists' insight into the presence of natural resources such as copper or gold. His master's thesis was rewarded with an 85 (out of a 100). According to his thesis supervisor, Chris Hecker, Fagbohun deserves the award because he has found a clear and reproducible way to combine complex datasets and because of the great results he has achieved. Fagbohun is currently working as an Assistant Lecturer at the Federal University of Technology Akure in Nigeria.
Sjoerd Geevers
Geevers completed the Applied Mathematics master's programme and receives the award for his work in simulating seismic waves. Since such simulations require a lot of memory and computer power Geevers started to look for more efficient methods to achieve this. Geevers completed his master's with distinction. His master's thesis was rewarded with a 9. Geevers is currently working as a research assistant at the Mathematics of Computational Science department, where he also performs research into optimizing the algorithms used to predict the progression of seismic waves. His research is being funded by Shell.
Mirjam Peek
Peek completed her Technical Medicine master's programme in 2014. She performed research into the optimization of a new treatment of benign breast tumours. You can 'burn' these with the help of ultrasound without damaging the surrounding tissue. She performed her graduation work at the Guy's and St. Thomas hospital in London and received a 10 for her master's thesis. Peek is currently working as a research fellow and PhD candidate at the Research Oncology department of the King's College London and the Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS foundation trust in London.
Job Quint
Quint, who completed an Industrial Engineering & Management master's programme, receives the graduation award for his research, with which he wanted to design a carpool method for the company Significant. He developed a model that matches overlapping routes of employees and minimizes detours. His master's thesis was rewarded with a 9. After graduation Quint started work as a Business Consultant at the First Consulting consultancy organization.
Central Education Award
During the opening of the academic year Erwin Hans was presented with the Central Education Award. Because of this he may call himself the best teacher of the University of Twente for a year. This award includes a financial reward of 2500 euros. The jury from the Central Education Committee, which consists solely of students, states that Hans has given the best lecture when it comes to structure and information density, as well as the way in which he manages to make his research area understandable and interesting for laymen.
Maaike Koenrades was granted the TGS award during the meeting. You can find more information on the award and the winner here.
