2018 CUAA Service to School Awardees

The Service to the School Awards are presented by the Cooper Union Alumni Association to graduates who have demonstrated exemplary service and leadership to The Cooper Union during their time as students.  The students are selected by the Deans of each of the schools.  The 2018 awards were presented by CUAA President, Paul Nikulin CE’06 on May _____.

Alfred Dudley III	Daniel Galperin	Dashiell Chrisner
Evan Shirley	Anushree Sreedhar	Rio Sofia De Gre
Andrew Pena	Yitzchack Yehoshua	Miles Barber

The Art School Service award was awarded to Alfred Dudley III.

Alfred Dudley III A’18 received 2018 Service to the School Award in Art and the 2018 Irma Giustino Weiss prize for Outstanding Potential in Arts.  Alfred hails from Prince George County , MD, where he attended Suitland High School’s Center for Visual and Performing arts. He began his studies at The Cooper Union with the intention of becoming an illustrator, but while at Cooper he found a passion for photography and for curating exhibitions. Alfred has curated 3 exhibitions that have hung in the 41 Cooper Square Gallery showcasing works by Black Cooper students and alumni.   They are Background 19, Midground 19, and Foreground.

Alfred took part in two National Education Association (NEA) Panel Discussions: one in Washington DC and One in Orlando.  Videos of his NEA talks are included in the C-Span Library.  Link.  He gave the introduction for Congressman John Lewis during Lewis’s  speech in the Great Hall on May 11, 2017.  link.  Alfred served as president of the Black Student Union and he served on the following Cooper Union committees:  Art Curriculum; Humanities Curriculum; Humanities Faculty, and Diversity Taskforce.  He also served on the Community Planning Task Force led by President Laura Sparks.  He has worked at Cooper as a tour guide and has a photo lab technician.  He was also a Residential Advisor (RA) in the dormitory.  He is currently preparing for study in Europe.

 The Albert Nerken School of Engineering Service Award was awarded to Daniel Galperin ChE ’18.

Daniel Galperin ChE ’18 was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York until he was 11 years old, when he moved to Moscow, Russia. There, he attended British and American international schools before arriving to The Cooper Union. Daniel is currently an Heating Solutions Engineer for Watts Water Technologies. As a freshman, Daniel joined the Cooper Dramatic Society, The Cooper Pioneer, and most importantly the Engineering Student Council. He developed an immediate fascination with Cooper Union’s recent turmoil involving tuition and began to study the events that took place at Cooper prior to his arrival. He was also very enthralled with how much input students could provide when it comes to administrative issues. This caused him to try to unpack the complex issues that have brought the Cooper Union to its current state. Through discourse with others in administration, on the Board of Trustees, in the faculty and, surely enough, among his peers, Daniel developed a profound believe that education is the single most important vehicle for social advancement and must therefore be treated with the utmost reverence. Among many other things, this also means education should be free. This led Daniel to delve deeply into his studies and to treat his discipline with respect. He believes that throughout his entire life, though he will be a part of many important institutions and undertakings, The Cooper Union is certainly the most important part of his life. One day, Daniel hopes to return to the Cooper Union to teach.

The Office of Student Affairs and awarded service awards to Aushree Sreedhar ChE’18  and Rio Sofia De Gre A’18.

Anushree Sreedhar ChE ’18 began giving back to the school her freshman year. She led engineering tours and joined The Pioneer as a writer/reporter, before transitioning to a website administrator. Anushree joined South Asian Society (SAS) as a choreographer, and The Coopertones A Capella group as a singer. She believes in professional development and joined AIChE as freshman representative, and then co-founded the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE) her sophomore year where her and a team initiated a mentor-mentee program, and helped build SASE chapters in nearby high schools in the city. The summer after her freshman year, Anushree participated in Invention Factory, a six week summer program where pairs of students worked together to innovate a solution to any problem they desire. Anushree and Mary  Dwyer ME ’19 engineered a cost-efficient and portable fire extinguishing ball for use in homes and in public municipalities. They were awarded second place at Invention Factory and filed for patent the following year. Representing The Cooper Union nationwide, Mary and Anushree continued their endeavors and became finalists for the Lemelson-MIT Undergraduate Competition 2016 and Collegiate Inventors Competition 2016, in addition to receiving Venturewell E-Team Stage 1 Grant.

In 2017, Anushree was a member of TEDxCooperUnion which had the theme of “ONE” and unification, bringing together an audience of more than 300 people of all backgrounds. During her senior year, she served as president of SAS, SASE, AIChE, and Coopertones. Her favorite springtime festivity is organizing  the Culture Show, an annual program hosted by SAS.  Anushree has taken a management consulting position in Philadelphia.

The Office of Alumni Affairs and Development awarded service awards to Andrew Pena, Yitzchak Yehoshua, and Miles Barber

Andrew Peña CE’18 is entering the University of California, Berkley where he will study Engineering and Project Management to reinforce and build upon his knowledge of managing projects in the Architecture-Engineering-Construction (AEC) and other industries. He aspires to one day establish an AEC-focused consultancy that assists designers, contractors, and owners in managing technology and business practices to enable the successful delivery of any construction project. Andrew’s pursuit of advancement in engineering and construction management stems from a desire to impact society; he believes construction industry will increasingly shape our quality of life through direct societal, economic and environmental impacts. By developing professional awareness around the ethical implications of construction while challenging existing industry standards, Andrew hopes to contribute to the construction industry’s progressive transformation.

While at the Cooper Union’s Albert Nerken School of Engineering, Andrew served as a student worker and tour guide in the admissions office for 2 years as well as a Resident Assistant in the residence hall for three years. He was also a captain of the student steel bridge team, vice president of Cooper’s student ASCE chapter and president of Cooper’s Chi Epsilon civil engineering honor society chapter. Andrew also played on the Cooper Union soccer team for 4 years. Throughout his time at Cooper, Andrew throughly enjoyed the humanities and social sciences, especially his courses in environmental sustainability with Mr. Al Appleton and Public Policy with Dr. Anne Griffin. He believes that his engineering education at Cooper was made complete by this department. Of the engineering courses, Andrew most enjoyed his Structural Analysis course with Dr. Cosmas Tzavelis and Experimental Projects course with Dr. Neal Simon Kwong; these courses gave Andrew and his classmates the invaluable opportunity to apply the theory learned in various courses to design build and test various structures and materials. Though Andrew is leaving New York City, he looks forward to meeting and engaging with the Cooper Community in the San Francisco Bay Area this fall.

Yitza Yeshova profile