The Founder’s Medal is the top honor given to a graduate of Vanderbilt University. Cornelius Vanderbilt’s gifts to the university included endowment of this award, given since 1877 for first honors in each graduating class. Akash Umakantha, who has been working in the CatLab since the end of his freshman year, is this year’s recipient from the School of Engineering at Vanderbilt. Congratulations Akash!
Akash Umakantha, from West Chester, Ohio, is Founder’s Medalist for the School of Engineering. He graduated with a bachelor of engineering in electrical and biomedical engineering. Umakantha has been a researcher at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the Vanderbilt Radiation Effects and Reliability Group and the Vanderbilt Department of Psychology. He has presented his research on models of decision-making at two international conferences. Working in Professor of Psychology Tom Palmeri’s laboratory after freshman year, he learned about mathematical models of decision-making and how to simulate complex mathematical equations on a computer. That experience inspired him to pursue an academic career in neuroscience and scientific computing. Umakantha served as an engineering tutor, and he volunteered in a 6th grade classroom through Vanderbilt Student Volunteers for Science. He is a member of engineering honor society Tau Beta Pi. Next fall, Umakantha will attend Carnegie Mellon University to pursue doctoral studies in neural computation and machine learning.