JR
John Ramsdell
  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Haverhill, MA

John Ramsdell to Receive Founders Award of Excellence

2017 Oct 26

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) student-athlete John Ramsdell of Haverhill 01830 has been chosen to receive a Founders Award of Excellence. The award will be presented at Saturday's 24th Annual Honors Convocation.

Samantha Lee is a senior computer science major and a member of the track & field team and Taylor MacEwen, a senior biomedical engineering major, is a runner in cross country as well as track & field. John Ramsdell, also a senior biomedical engineering major, and Luke Watanabe, a junior computer systems engineering major, both play football. Vera Titze, a junior who studies physics, is dual-sport athlete on the soccer and track & field teams.

The Founders Award of Excellence was established in 1994 to honor students who embody qualities of creativity, discovery, leadership, and the values of pride and responsibility at Rensselaer. The award consists of a special certificate, recognition by faculty, staff, and peers at the Honors Convocation ceremony, and a cash prize. Approximately 70 graduate or undergraduate students - about one percent of our student population - are honored each year as winners of Rensselaer's Founders Award of Excellence.

Recipients of the Founders Award of Excellence demonstrate all of the following characteristics:

Strong academic performance. Candidates should be in the top 10% of their respective class;

Pride and responsibility in all aspects of her or his life at Rensselaer;

Outstanding leadership skills exhibiting discretion, judgment, and well-rounded regard for the opinions of others;

Originality and imagination that may be evidenced by the potential to solve problems and possess skills to promote new ideas and theories in his or her field of study.

Eligible nominees must be enrolled as a sophomore, junior, senior, fifth-year architecture student or graduate student (full or part-time). Students may receive the Founders Award of Excellence only once during their tenure at Rensselaer.

Nominators were required to submit supporting documentation with the nomination form or ask others to join in endorsing a candidate. A letter of recommendation from the person submitting the nomination was required.

Founded in 1824, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is America's oldest technological research university. For nearly two centuries, the Institute has been a driving force behind breakthroughs in engineering and science in virtually every arena-from transportation and infrastructure to business, medicine, outer space, and cyberspace.

As it approaches its bicentennial anniversary, the Institute continues to define The New Polytechnic, a new paradigm for teaching, learning, and research that uses advanced technologies to enable fresh collaborations across disciplines, sectors, and regions, in order to answer the global challenges of our day.