WWU student Dori Harcharik wins industry honor for her research

At the beginning of September, Dori Harcharik, a senior majoring in Polymer Materials Engineering, won first place for her research paper and presentation at the Society for the Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering's (SAMPE) annual research symposium (University Research Symposium, URS). 

The first step in this honor was to have her research selected from 30 different undergraduate papers; after this success, Harcharik was granted a travel award to present her work at the conference with five other undergraduate researchers. Her high quality research, professionalism, and extremely well-communicated presentation led her to be selected as the winner among the five finalists. It is a prestigious award, as many industry leaders in the materials and process engineering space were once part of this same competition. 

"Being part of the URS has highlighted to me how much I have grown as a student researcher during my time in the PME program at WWU. My research team and I put curiosity, hard work, and perseverance into this project each step of the way, so to be able to present on our successes was an honor," said Harcharik. "I hope students at WWU take a chance and join that research group or club they're interested in, because that's how you get started on amazing tracks where you get to work hard and contribute to exciting ideas and opportunities that make you grow as a student, and as a person."