UMR will award six honorary professional degrees during its winter commencement Saturday, Dec. 20.

Briget Doyle of Holland, Mich., a doctoral student in geological engineering at UMR, recently received the "Outstanding Student Professional Paper, Graduate Division" award from the Association of Engineering Geologists at its annual meeting in Vail, Colo., for her research into the 1811-12 New Madrid earthquake series, the largest to ever hit the United States.

Dr. Robert Landers, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UMR, was recently selected to receive a 2004 M. Eugene Merchant Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME).

Dr. John Myers, assistant professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at UMR, recently received a 2004 Eisenhower Faculty Fellowship from the National Highway Institute. The fellowships are presented to faculty in transportation-related fields to help them improve their transportation expertise.

Three metallurgical engineering students at UMR received scholarships at the Foundry Educational Foundation College Industry Conference Nov. 13-15 in Chicago.

Troy Stull of Brighton, Mo., a senior in mechanical engineering at UMR, recently won second place in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ Student Manufacturing Engineering Design Competition for his virtual die-casting work cell project.

Two students from UMR recently accepted national board positions with the Architectural Engineering Institute, an organization within the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Students from the University of Missouri-Rolla finished in first and second place during an annual black box competition sponsored by the St. Louis Section of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers on Nov. 15.

Connie Hager Silverstein, president of the University of Missouri System Board of Curators, will deliver the commencement address during UMR’s Annual Commencement Saturday, Dec. 20.