On Tuesday, February 24, senior mechanical engineering student Taha Mohmoud was named the School of Engineering’s Undergraduate Student of the Year, and Helen Brinyark, a biomedical engineering graduate student, was named Graduate Student of the Year. The two were recognized, along with other UAB student nominees, at the 67th Annual Awards Banquet of the Engineering Council of Birmingham (ECOB).
Other nominees included:
Undergraduates
- Sree Nataraj, Biomedical Engineering
- Jessie Phillips, Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering
- Lu McEntyre, Electrical & Computer Engineering
- Daniel Hollingsworth, Engineering Design
- David Bojan, Materials Science & Engineering
Graduate Student of the Year
- Mahdi Baghersad, Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering
- Zoe Elam, Construction Engineering Management
- Sai Akash Chinthakindi, Electrical & Computer Engineering
- George Chambers, Materials Science & Engineering
- Mohammed Al Amin, Mechanical Engineering
- Andee Beierle, Neuroengineering
- Jillian Stanton, Structural Engineering
- Steve Reeves, Sustainable Smart Cities
Mohmoud is a recipient of the Phi Theta Kappa scholarship and has been named to both the Dean’s List and President’s List. He works as a teaching assistant and peer tutor for both the School of Engineering and the UAB Department of Mathematics.
During Fall 2024, he participated in the NASA Lucy Space Program Internship through a virtual, team-based simulation. As the team leader, he was responsible for guiding design decisions and keeping the team aligned with mission goals.
Additionally, Mohmoud served as chair of UAB’s AIAA student organization in 2024-25, and in February of 2025, he founded the YouTube channel “Safe by Design.” The channel focuses on everyday safety engineering and explains how common systems are designed to protect people.
Brinyark is a recipient of a Blazer Graduate Research Fellowship, and maintains a 3.93 overall GPA, 3.90 in engineering.
She is a member of Tau Beta Pi and Omega Chi Epsilon, and she has received travel awards from the Neuroscience Roadmap Scholars Program, the Graduate Student Government, and the Minnesota Neuromodulation Symposium.
Brinyark has coauthored several journal articles and has given oral presentations at multiple conferences. She participated in two co-ops with BASF Corporation, and has since worked with BASF as a contract chemist/engineer.
She currently conducts research in the Neural Signal Processing and Modeling Lab under the direction of Dr. Rachel Smith, where her work involves analyzing cortico-cortical spectral responses (CCSR) for seizure-onset zone localization, as well as comparison of CCSRs and dynamical network model outputs, and neural resonance-guided stimulation to induce seizures.