Thirty graduates were honored for their service, impact at 2024 Alumni Awards Induction Ceremony.
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Leaders at Georgia Power, Coach, IBM. An engineer who worked on NASA’s Apollo-era Saturn rockets. A former dean of the College.
They were among a group of 30 College of Engineering graduates honored at the 2024 Alumni Awards Induction Ceremony in Atlanta. They were celebrated for their contributions to the engineering profession, career accomplishments, and the ways they’ve enhanced the lives of others both personally and professionally.
Honorees are annually nominated by committees within each of the College’s eight schools and formally submitted for selection. The event is held each spring.
Eight graduates joined the College’s Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni based on their early career achievements. Nine others entered the College’s Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni for their significant and distinguished contributions as senior leaders in the field.
Eleven received the College’s highest honor: induction into the Engineering Hall of Fame.
Hall of Famer Andrea Laliberte with Raheem Beyah and Tom Fanning.
The list of honorees spanned more than 60 years. The earliest graduation year was 1959, and the most recent was 2021.
“While more than a half century separates these individuals, there is one thing they have in common: they are each a helluva engineer,” said Raheem Beyah, dean of the College, Southern Company Chair, and a two-time Georgia Tech graduate. “The span of years doesn’t matter. Our shared Georgia Tech experience brings us together.”
Among the Hall of Famers was Andrea Laliberte, a two-time graduate of the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial Systems and Engineering. Laliberte spent much of her career at Coach, where she helped the company increase sales more than 10-fold and conduct an initial public offering. As senior vice president of distribution and consumer service, she was responsible for global distribution, customer service, transportation, and trade compliance.
Gary May served as dean of the College from 2011-2017.
“The education I received from Georgia Tech with my both my bachelor’s and master’s allowed me to have a professional career that I never thought I would have, nor could I ever have imagined,” Laliberte said during her induction speech.
Another new Hall of Famer returned to the ceremony he once hosted. Gary May earned his electrical and computer engineering degree in 1985, spent three decades on campus as a faculty member, and served as dean from 2011-2017. He’s now chancellor of the University of California, Davis.
“My years at Georgia Tech defined so much of my life. It’s really impossible to reduce to mere words the impact that this institution has had on me,” May said at the ceremony. “During my time here, I learned what it takes to be an educator, a scholar, and a leader from many exceptional mentors, including people like Roger Webb, Don Giddens, and especially Wayne Clough, whose example taught me how to be an effective university president.”
Beyah presented two other special honors during the event. The Dean’s Appreciation Award went to the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation. The A. James Clark Scholars Program, which supports students with financial need who exhibit academic and leadership potential, welcomes 10 Georgia Tech engineering students each year. Sixty students have been supported since the program started on campus in 2017.
The Dean’s Impact Award went to FIXD, a company founded by graduates John Gattuso (mechanical engineering) and Frederick Grimm (industrial engineering). The duo built a sensor and app that reads diagnostic data for any vehicle manufactured since 1996, easing the stress of car problems for millions of customers.
The awards program was emceed by Tom Fanning, who recently retired as chairman, president, and CEO of Southern Company after four decades of service to the energy company’s 9 million customers.
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2024 Inductees
Back row: Szlam, Flowers, Adkins, Laliberte, Anderson, Beerman, Dash
Front row: May, Sanders, Stubbe, Spencer
Engineering Hall of Fame
- Rodney Adkins (EE 1981, M.S. EE 1983, Hon. Ph.D. 2013)
- Michael Anderson (IE 1979)
- Ronald Beerman (IE 1973)
- Marcus Dash (AE 1966, M.S. AE 1968)
- D. Fort Flowers, Jr. (ME 1983)
- Andrea Laliberte (IE 1982, M.S. IE 1984)
- Gary May (EE 1985, Hon. Ph.D. 2021)
- Robert Sanders (CER 1974, M.S. MET 1976, Ph.D. CHE 1978)
- Bob Spencer (CHE 1959)
- Friedel Stubbe (CE 1970)
- Aleksander Szlam (EE 1974, M.S. EE 1980)
From left: Stenson, Zhu, Herren, O'Connor Hodgson, Breen, Peterman, Platt, Powell, Selman
The Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni
- Rita Breen (PSY 1990, M.S. IE 1992)
- Scott Herren (IE 1984)
- Lara O’Connor Hodgson (AE 1993)
- Erika Peterman (CHE 1997)
- Manu Platt (Ph.D. BMED 2006)
- Barry Powell (ME 1989, M.S. ME 1991)
- Wassim Selman (CE 1981, M.S. CE 1982, Ph.D. CE 1986)
- Joel Stenson (EE 1997)
- Lingbo Zhu (Ph.D. CHE 2007)
From left: Miller, Safranski, Newton, Natarajan, Tino, Mannino, Thavi Sanders, Otto
The Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni
- Rob Mannino (BMED 2013, Ph.D. BMED 2018)
- Andrew Miller (CE 2009, M.S. CE 2010, Ph.D. BIOE 2017)
- Shay Natarajan (ME 2009, M.S. ME 2012)
- Ashley Newton (CHBE 2009)
- Nick Otto (EE 2005)
- David Safranski (MSE 2007, M.S. MSE 2008, Ph.D MSE 2010)
- Isabella Thavi Sanders (M.S. OR 2019, M.S. GIST 2019, MBA 2021, Ph.D. IE 2021)
- Clayton Tino (AE 2007, M.S. AE 2012, Ph.D. AE 2013)
Grimm and Gattuso accept the Dean’s Impact Award
Dean’s Appreciation Award
A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation
Dean’s Impact Award
John Gattuso (ME 2015) and Frederick Grimm (IE 2014) for FIXD
Natalie Grandison of the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation with Georgia Tech Clark Scholars students
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