Denice Denton Mentorship Award
2026 Winner: Victor Bright, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
2026 Winner: Sarah Bergbreiter, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
The Hilton Head Workshop is pleased to announce the Denice Denton Mentorship Award. This award recognizes long-term mentors with a proven record of mentoring researchers and engineers in areas of interest to the TRF.
The award is given in honor of Denice Denton (1959 - 2006), who earned her BS, MS and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then went on to a groundbreaking career in academia.
Winners will receive formal recognition at the Hilton Head 2026 Workshop and a commemorative plaque. The
Nomination Form (pdf) is due 15 April 2026 via email to
awards@hh2026.org.
Mark Shannon Grand Challenges Award
2022 Winner: Leslie A. Field, Bright Ice Initiative, Inc., SmallTech Consulting, LLC, and Stanford University, USA
The Hilton Head Workshop is pleased to announce the Mark Shannon Grand Challenges Award. This award recognizes the long-term contributions of members of our technical community who have committed to a vision that addresses humanity's pressing issues.
The award is given in honor of Mark A. Shannon (1955 - 2012), who earned his BS, MS and Ph.D. degrees at the University of California, Berkeley, and was on the Mechanical and Systems Engineering faculty of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Winners will receive formal recognition at the Hilton Head 2026 Workshop and a commemorative plaque. The
Nomination Form (pdf) is due 15 April 2026 via email to
awards@hh2026.org.
Wen Ko Technical Leadership Award
2026 Winner: Sunil Bhave, DARPA, USA
The Hilton Head Workshop is pleased to announce the Wen Ko Technical Leadership Award. This award recognizes researchers with an outstanding track record of technical leadership and innovation in areas of interest to the TRF.
The award is given in honor of Wen Hsiung Ko (1923-2017), a member of the Electrical Engineering faculty of Case Western Reserve University from 1959 to his retirement in 1993.
Winners will receive formal recognition at the Hilton Head 2026 Workshop and a commemorative plaque. The
Nomination Form (pdf) is due 15 April 2026 via email to
awards@hh2026.org.
Oliver Brand Scholarship Award
2026 Winner: Seyyed Mojtaba Hassani Gangaraj, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
The Hilton Head Workshop is pleased to announce the Oliver Brand Scholarship Award. This award, given to a student or postdoctoral researcher, recognizes an outstanding paper submitted to and presented at the Hilton Head Workshop.
The award is given in honor and memory of Professor Oliver Brand (1964-2023). He earned his PhD at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETH-Zurich) and spent more than two decades as a member of the Georgia Tech (GT) faculty. Winners will receive formal recognition at the Hilton Head 2026 Workshop. Nominations for the Scholarship Award are made by the Hilton Head Technical Program Committee based on submitted abstracts, and the final determination is confirmed by the TRF Awards Committee. This award is made possible by Oliver's devoted friends and colleagues.
Bryzek Abundance Award
2026 Winners:
Md. Mamunoor Islam, University of Texas, El Paso, USA
Matin "Ataei" Kachouei, Virginia Tech, USA
2024 Winners:
Joshua Levy, University of Maryland, USA
Xintian Liu from University of California, Berkeley, USA
The Transducer Research Foundation (TRF) is pleased to announce the Bryzek Abundance Award.
The award is given in honor of Janusz Bryzek, who was a pioneering and prolific MEMS entrepreneur who started 11 companies and was committed to the vision of Abundance.
Winners will receive formal recognition at the Hilton Head Workshop, a commemorative plaque and a $1000 scholarship. The nomination process will be announced at a future date.
