Damena Agonafer, Clark Faculty Fellow and associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, received the PECASE, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers early in their careers. 

Agonafer’s award is in recognition of research he is conducting on two-phase cooling systems for electronics. Specifically, Agonafer is studying the fundamental limits of evaporative cooling for high-powered electronic systems. Understanding these mechanisms can aid in developing more efficient and less environmentally impactful approaches to component cooling, with applications that range from data centers to electric vehicles. His work in this area has been supported by a National Science Foundation CAREER Award that he received in 2019.

“It’s humbling to be recognized by the White House for the contributions I’ve been able to make in the area of heat transfer and thermal management,” Agonafer said. “In addition to the research itself, I’ve been able to undertake significant education and outreach efforts through my NSF CAREER Award, including programs aimed at providing educational opportunities to underrepresented students.”

A member of the UMD mechanical engineering faculty since 2022, Agonafer pursues a wide range of research at the intersection of engineering, energy, and sustainability. He is the UMD site lead for the newly-launched Environmentally Applied Refrigerant Technology Hub, a $26 million, NSF-funded Gen-4 Engineering Research Center focused on reining in the environmental costs of refrigeration technologies.

Brendan Hanrahan M.S. ’09 Ph.D ’13, an alum of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, was an individual recipient of the PAESMEM honor. The award recognizes individuals with a record of mentoring underrepresented groups in STEM education and workforce, who have sustained their efforts for at least five years.  

“The presidential award is the culmination of a years-long personal quest to improve equity in STEM. I have found mentoring, particularly of underrepresented groups, to be the most impactful, rewarding, and important aspect of my work. Each mentee I spend time with has returned the favor and been a mentor to me as well,” said Hanrahan. 

Over the years, Hanrahan has learned how mentorship can be used as a tool for equity and inclusion. While he explains that organic mentor-mentee relationships form between members of similar backgrounds, purposeful diversification of mentorship can extend the experiences of more senior professionals outside of groups with coincidental shared demographics.

Hanrahan, who serves as a senior materials engineer in the Energy Sciences Division of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, has had a history of over 12 years working to improve diversity and inclusion in his workplace through mentoring. In 2022, his mentee cohort was 86% represented by minority groups—compared to the 68% white male workforce at that time. Additionally, many of his mentees have led successful careers in firms like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, among others. 

His work, which encompasses small-group mentoring for undergraduate and graduate students, as well visits to K-12 STEM teachers, has earned him other mentorship accolades, in addition to winning the Federal Gold Award (National Capital Region) for Community Service in 2016. 

He first saw the true benefits of mentoring early in his career, as a graduate student working under Reza Ghodssi, when he started supporting his undergraduate peers.

“Having a near peer show you the ropes is more powerful than learning about an experience remotely or while reading about it,” Hanrahan said.