Department of Biological Systems Engineering Honors Outstanding Students
May 12, 2026
Each year, the BSE department selects an Outstanding Student from each undergraduate class and from each graduate degree level. Outstanding Students are nominated based on their academic achievement and are invited to submit materials describing their activities and achievements in academics, service to the department and university, service to the community, extracurricular participation, and leadership roles. The BSE Awards committee evaluates the material and selects the outstanding students to honor. It is a very difficult job for the Awards Committee to select just a few students because there are so many great students in BSE.
Each outstanding student award includes a plaque and a cash award made possible through the generosity of Dr. Saied Mostaghimi, a past department head, and his wife, Dr. Patty Mostaghimi. The Mostaghimis established an endowed fund in 2010 and specified that the proceeds of that fund be awarded to BSE Outstanding students each year.
Outstanding Undergraduate Students
Senior- Michaela Foster
Michaela Foster began working with Dr. Bell early in her sophomore year on subsurface denitrifying bioreactors, designing and building a 12‑column system and helping collect and analyze more than 600 water samples before conducting extensive statistical analysis and preparing a manuscript for peer review. She has broadened her research experience through an REU at NC State studying plant responses to phosphate starvation—growing over 500 seedlings, learning confocal microscopy, and presenting her work—and through internships in water and wastewater engineering and stormwater management, which strengthened her passion for protecting water resources.
Michaela has been an active leader in her engineering living‑learning community, mentoring first‑year students and supporting mental health initiatives, and has been a dedicated member of the Virginia Tech Concrete Canoe team, serving as concrete mix lead and paddling during the team’s 2nd‑place national finish. A competitive jump roper since childhood, she has spent four years in Club Jump Rope and now serves as its president, leading the planning and hosting of the 10th annual National Collegiate Jump Rope Association Summit at Virginia Tech.
Junior- Ethan VonNida
Ethan VonNida serves as the technical team lead for the Fountain Wars engineering design team and previously helped the team earn 2nd place nationally in the ASABE competition. He is a BSE student ambassador, sharing both the academic strengths of the program and the sense of belonging and support he’s experienced. His hands‑on work includes roles as a microbiology intern in Steger Hall, research in Dr.Wang’s Sustainable Environment Research Lab on wastewater, and current work in Dr. Duraj‑Thatte’s lab on hydrogels—experiences that have helped him discover his professional passions. Having spent the semester in Ireland, he gained a global engineering perspective while staying active in campus life through groups like University College Dublin’s Mountaineering Club.
Sophomore-William Collins
William Collins is an accomplished sophomore at Virginia Tech, taking an 18‑credit load of honors, science, and engineering courses while teaching two sections of Chemistry 1035, conducting mechanobiology research in Dr. Kim’s Biomedical Engineering lab, and serving in multiple leadership roles as a Stamps Scholar, honors leader, and volunteer tutor through Alpha Chi Sigma. Besides his major, he is minoring in Biomedical Engineering and Chemistry, and pursuing an Honors Laureate Diploma.
On the pre‑med track, he has worked as a licensed pharmacy technician, redesigned a medical suction device for the VT Rescue Squad, and created a more effective, affordable prosthetic finger to improve accessibility and quality of life for people with disabilities.
Outstanding Graduate Students
Ph.D. - Sarah Price
Sarah Price has established herself as an exceptional scholar whose doctoral work in Biological Systems Engineering demonstrates both scientific rigor and meaningful public‑health impact. After entering the program in 2021, she advanced into the direct‑to‑PhD track and completed the CIP CAR NSF Research Traineeship, earning the Science, Technology, and Engineering in Policy graduate certificate alongside her PhD . Her dissertation research broke new ground by adapting wastewater‑based surveillance methods to rural communities, designing and executing a year‑long field study comparing septage and centralized wastewater to evaluate potential “urban bias” in public‑health monitoring. This effort required extensive molecular analysis, field coordination, and relationship‑building with wastewater operators, where she became “a favorite at the plant, even making friends with the workplace cat”.
Sarah also demonstrated impressive leadership by organizing a two‑year systematic literature review with seven graduate students, ultimately screening nearly 3,000 abstracts and over 850 manuscripts to reveal significant global gaps in rural wastewater surveillance research . Her scholarly productivity is exceptional: one dissertation chapter is published in Science of the Total Environment, another is accepted in Water Research, and a third is in preparation. She additionally contributed to two interdisciplinary projects involving wastewater surveillance and drinking‑water quality, directly participating in field sampling, ddPCR analyses, and late‑night laboratory work—efforts that have already produced three published manuscripts with two more underway . Alongside her research, she served the department as a graduate liaison and was selected as the graduate representative on a 2023 faculty search committee, reflecting her strong reputation among peers .
Master's - Nathan Michaelson
Nathan has built an exceptional record of professional, academic, and service‑oriented achievement during his time at Virginia Tech. He gained extensive industry experience as a Water Resources Engineering Intern with both Dewberry and Wetland Studies & Solutions, where he strengthened his applied skills in hydrologic analysis and environmental permitting. As an undergraduate and graduate research assistant for Dr. Czuba, Nathan contributed to cutting‑edge hydrodynamic modeling research and is listed as an author on a published paper, Lidar DEM and computational mesh grid resolutions modify roughness in 2D hydrodynamic model, as well as on a conference poster examining DEM resolution effects on roughness representation.
He presented his work at both the VT Science Festival and the AGU25 Annual Meeting, demonstrating strong scientific communication skills and a commitment to advancing water resources research. Beyond academics, Nathan served as a BSE Peer Mentor, previously managed the 209 Marketplace food pantry, led the Wesley at VT community as Student Campus Minister, and held an officer role in the American Water Resources Association student chapter. Together, these accomplishments reflect Nathan’s leadership, technical capability, and deep dedication to service within both the university and the broader community.
