5 YEARS BACK...

“The Secret Life of Engineers,” Spring 2017, highlighted some of the after-hours and after-class interests of students and professors. Mechanical engineering student Jalal “Jay” Yazji served as the president of eNABLE, a group devoted to providing 3D-printed prosthetics to area children. Yazji graduated with his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UH in 2019, and he has been working as a structural components design engineer at Greene Tweed's Houston office since then.

10 YEARS BACK...

The Spring 2012 edition biopsied “Life Inside The Cell: The New Tools of Biomolecular Engineering.” Six of the professors profiled — Peter Vekilov, Patrick Cirino, Navin Varadarajan, Richard Willson, Jeffrey Rimer and Ramanan Krishnamoorti — continue to produce high-quality work for the college to this day. Elsewhere in the issue, Pradeep Sharma was recognized as the new chairman of the Mechanical Engineering Department, effective January 2012, and outstanding junior Preston Broom (Chemical Engineering) and senior Brian Clark (Electrical Engineering) were spotlighted. Broom has been a gas processing and process engineer at Shell for more than eight years. Clark went on to earn his master's degree in electrical engineering from The Ohio State University. “I now live in the Dallas area working for L3Harris, mainly doing antenna and RF circuit design,” he said. “In my free time, I play as many sports as possible and also play the French horn in a local community band.”

15 YEARS BACK...

In 2007, Fritz Claydon was serving as acting dean, bridging the gap between Raymond Flumerfelt — stepping down after nine years in that role — and current dean Joseph Tedesco, who started in January 2008. Civil engineering graduate student Courtney Bird was featured for her work on a new concept shopping development at Pearland Town Center, as part of Carter & Burgess. Bird completed her master's degree in 2008, and worked for Jacobs Engineering as a project manager, and Phillips 66 as an operations engineer. She is now a business development manager for Bovay Engineers, Inc.

20 YEARS BACK...

“One of the fiercest fighting martial artists in the world sits in an office on the second floor of the Cullen College of Engineering Building 1 on the University of Houston campus.” Sandy Geffert — now Moore — earned her mechanical engineering degree from the Cullen College of Engineering in 2001, her master’s in 2003, and a doctorate in 2007, all while continuing a championship karate career. From 2001 to 2006, Sandy earned 27 medals for WKA Team USA, including six World Titles. She completed an internship with NASA in 2006, and since then, has been employed in the aerospace industry, primarily as an EVA flight controller and instructor, and a spacewalk specialist. In 2007, she married a fellow Cougar, Brian Moore (BSChE ’01) and they have two daughters. “I am beyond grateful for my time at the University of Houston,” she said. “I came away with so much more than a degree. I gained real-life problem-solving skills, confidence, and a group of friends that I consider family.”