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Alfred Delumpa and Frank Permenter have received the honor of Outstanding Senior and Junior respectively for the Cullen College of Engineering. Each year, professors nominate an outstanding junior and senior from each department, and Frank “Fritz” Claydon, associate dean for undergraduate programs and computer facilities, makes a final decision. Both students will be recognized at a luncheon at Rice University.

Delumpa, who attended Michael E. DeBakey High School for Medical Professions, had an early interest in biology and chemical engineering. With the recently developed biomedical engineering program, the college had a lot to offer the National Dean’s List student, who has also made the departmental Dean’s List for seven consecutive semesters. Delumpa was also one of last year’s outstanding juniors in the chemical engineering department.

“I remember hearing a story in high school biology class where they took a gene from a jellyfish and inserted it into a monkey embryo, and the resulting chimp glowed in the dark,” Delumpa said. “The fact that all life, from the simplest bacteria to humans, spoke the same ‘language’ through DNA sparked my interest in bioengineering and the capabilities of the field.”

Delumpa has applied to a number of medical schools, most of which are in Texas, because the Texas Medical Center “is such a good resource.” Through his experiences at the DeBakey High School for Health Professions, Delumpa has already had his first glimpse into the field.

With graduation approaching, Delumpa’s main focus is his senior honors thesis, a research concept that could eventually stop cancer cells.

“The goal of my project is to encapsulate compacted plasmid DNA into liposomes,” Delumpa said. “It was the potential application that made me want to work on this project. When your cells grow normally, there is a balance between molecules that promote cell division and factors that inhibit cell division. In cancer, the genes that inhibit cell growth don’t work as well, and the cell growth explodes. That’s what cancer is. One approach to curing this is delivering the genes which regulate cell division to the cancer sites.”

Permenter, who has a cumulative Grade Point Average of 3.96, has worked actively within the college to make a name for himself as well. He made the National Dean’s List in 2003, and as a member of the Honors College, Permenter was named an Outstanding First Year Honors Student, an accolade bestowed upon an average of 12 students each year.

Though Permenter has maintained a place on the University’s Dean’s List since his first semester, he said his work outside of the classroom has been the most rewarding. In May 2004, Permenter began an internship with The Boeing Company as a student engineer on the Guidance, Navigation and Control Flight Software Team for the International Space Station.

The team maintains, makes changes and continues to develop the software that controls the attitude of the space station while it's circling the
earth,” Permenter said. “My job was more of a support role since I was hired as an intern. I worked with other engineers to help them test software and did some testing of the software myself. It was very interesting work.”

A job in the space industry was “a dream come true” for Permenter, who took an early interest in the field.

“I always thought it would be neat to work for NASA, which was a motivating force in choosing a major,” said Permenter, who returned to The Boeing Company during the winter holidays. “I am thrilled that I get to work for NASA in some capacity already. I consider it a dream job.”