EECS names student marshals for 2018 spring commencement
4/23/2018
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Joshua Cetnar, Yizhi Huang and Gus Smith, all from the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, have been selected to serve as student marshals for the College of Engineering’s May 4 spring commencement ceremony.
College of Engineering marshals are selected for their outstanding academic achievement and contributions to engineering student life.
Cetnar has been selected as the student marshal for the electrical engineering baccalaureate program at the College of Engineering spring commencement ceremony on May 4. He will receive his bachelor’s of science degree in electrical engineering.
He has selected David Salvia, director of academic affairs for the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, to be his faculty escort at the ceremony.
“I'm grateful to be honored by the College of Engineering, and I'm excited to represent my hometown of Bellefonte,” Cetnar said.
The Bellefonte native received the President’s Freshman Award and the Evan Pugh Scholar Senior Award during his academic career at Penn State. He is also the recipient of several scholarships: a Lockheed Martin Engineering Scholarship, Madden Honors Scholarship, John L. Brown Endowed Scholarship, Marjorie W. Dunaway Renaissance Scholarship and the Harold I. Tarpley Memorial Scholarship.
As a member of the Penn State branch of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Cetnar served in several leadership positions as the projects chair and the corporate liaison.
While at Penn State, Cetnar had three internships and a co-op. His co-op was working with Kimberly-Clark, developing code for machines and supporting machine installments. As a teaching intern for the Department of Electrical Engineering, he originated the Arduino freshman seminar class, developing materials and teaching the course. He also worked as an intern at the Applied Research Lab at Penn State, where he developed simulation and data analysis software. Cetnar currently interns at Videon Central as a Technical Solutions Specialist where he supports technical marketing efforts for their live streaming products and manages local business development. He will work in this position full-time following graduation.
He will work in this position full-time following graduation.
Huang has been selected as the student marshal for the computer science baccalaureate program at the College of Engineering spring commencement ceremony on May 4. He will receive bachelors’ degrees in computer science and mathematics.
Huang has selected Danfeng Zheng, assistant professor of computer science and engineering in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, to be his faculty escort at the ceremony.
Huang, who grew up in Malden, Mass., received the Evans Trustee Scholarship and the Undergraduate Scholarship for Talented Students while at Penn State.
He worked on several research projects during his academic career. He worked in the Intelligent Information System Lab as a research assistant working on satellite images interpretation to forecast severe weather, in news image-text relationship analysis and in rating prediction of photos.
He also won first place of advanced tier at Code PSU in the spring of 2017.
After graduation, Huang will attend graduate school for his master’s in computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
Smith has been selected as the student marshal for the computer engineering baccalaureate program at the College of Engineering spring commencement ceremony on May 4. He will receive his bachelor’s of science degree in computer engineering.
Smith has selected Vijay Narayanan, distinguished professor of computer science and engineering in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, to be his faculty escort at the ceremony.
Smith, a Mountain Top, Pa. native, is also a Schreyer Honors College student and has written his thesis on software evaluation of processing in memory architectures.
While at Penn State, Smith received several academic awards including the Evan Pugh Junior Award, the Graduate Teaching Assistant Award and the Edward J. Nichols Memorial Award in Writing (fiction).
He was also involved in several research projects. In the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, he was the team lead in the Haptic Glove project in the Microsystems Design Lab. He also worked as the team lead in his College of Engineering capstone project, “Automated Ceiling Tile Measuring Tool.”
As a two-time intern for Google during his academic career, Smith worked as a software engineer on Google Chrome and as an engineer on Android internal tools.
Following commencement, Smith will attend graduate school at the University of Washington, working for his Ph.D. in computer science and engineering
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Joshua Cetnar
Yizi Huang
Gus Smith
