Derek Thomas (Aero ’08) received the Outstanding Poster Award at the International Conference on Photo-Excited Processes and Applications (ICPEPA 2008) in Sapporo, Japan last week.
Derek was the only undergraduate student competing for the award with more than 20 graduate students from many countries.Conducting research under Leo Zhilgelei's Computational Materials Group, he was completing research started as an undergraduate while here at the University of Virginia. Derek will return to Japan this week as one of only a handful of students to be awarded a scholarship to study with the University of Tokyo’s Mechanical, Electrical and Engineering Materials International Graduate Program.