91·çÃùÄñ³ª

Madani-Gordaninejad Speech Competition

The competition is 4 p.m. April 10 in the William Pennington Engineering Building (WPEB), room 240.

Semifinalists are:

  • Elena Chau — "Chess: The Ultimate Game of Strategy and Life"  
  • Hector Quintero De La Cruz —"What We Owe to Each Other" 
  • Benjamin Ferido — "De-mystifying Qi: The Ancient Relationship Between Martial Arts and Kinesiology" 
  • Ali Al Khoori — "How Engineers Design Buildings to Survive Earthquakes"
  • Chanel Koh — "Flood MAR: Reducing Flood Risk, Improving Drought Resiliency and What We Need to Get There"
  • Miles Haney-Lanuza — "Map of Opportunity: How Public Transit Decides Who Gets to Move Forward"

About the competition

Head shot of Azita Gordaninejad.

Faramarz Gordaninejad, a Regents and Foundation professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department, retired in 2017 after 33 years of service to the 91·çÃùÄñ³ª. He established the Madani-Gordaninejad Speech Competition in memory of his wife, Azita Madani Gordaninejad, in 2018. The goal of the speech competition is to improve the communication skills of engineering students.

Past winners

  • 2025: Stephen Bard, Mechanical Engineering, "Advancing Roller Coasters with Adaptive Spike Motor Technology" 
  • 2024: Robert Gillespy, Mechanical Engineering, “The Total Solar Eclipse: An Unforgettable Spectacle”
  • 2023: Mark Marsala, Computer Science, “Overview of Security, Privacy, and Anonymity on The Onion Router Browser”
  • 2022: Erick Bandala Sanchez, Mechanical Engineering, “Printing the Future”
  • 2021: Olivia Tahti, Civil Engineering, “Still Water in Coal Run”
  • 2019: Mitchell Lane, Mechanical Engineering, “Rubik’s Cubes in Popular Culture”
  • 2018: Brett McMahan, Mechanical Engineering, “Why We Choose to be Comfortable Instead of Happy”