![\"uncommonegles\"](\"http:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/uncommonegles.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Each year, two graduate students are selected to receive the Averitt Award, which is the highest honor bestowed within the Jack N. Averitt College of Graduate Studies. This year, Aaron Roberts of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences was honored for Excellence in Instruction. In addition, Allen E. Paulson College of Engineering and Information Technology (CEIT) student Cameron Cato was recognized for Excellence in Research.<\/p>\n
Roberts, an English major with a concentration in post-colonial literature, finished work on his Master of Arts degree in May. He said completing his studies would not have been possible without the leadership of Department of Literature professors Joe Pellegrino, Dustin Anderson and Howard Keeley. \u201cI think all three of them are an excellent combination of intense scholarship but also of calm mentoring,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what I would have done without their guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n
His research in biopolitics explored famines in Ireland and in the former Indian state of Bengal, now known as the nation of Bangladesh. Roberts investigated how public policies can be used to manipulate people\u2019s personal lives. Citing the Bengal famine of the 1940s, he noted: \u201cThe widespread famine was caused by nature but the colonial government enacted certain policies that made it much worse for certain groups of people. As a result, poorer farmers suffered more because rice intended for them was taken to feed people who were considered more important.\u201d Roberts discovered that many of the themes in post-colonial literature are still relevant because many of the same social issues exist today.<\/p>\n
In addition to teaching for two semesters, the native of Mt. Zion, Illinois presented his research on several occasions – twice at the Georgia Southern-sponsored British Commonwealth and Post-Colonial Studies Conference in Savannah, as well as during four other conferences.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are so many research activities here… Georgia Southern gave me my background in Irish Studies,\u201d said Roberts. \u201cThe Center for Irish Research and Teaching continues to grow in influence and provides many great educational and research opportunities, including a program for students to go to Ireland to conduct research.\u201d<\/p>\n
This fall, the Excellence in Instruction winner will begin his doctoral studies at the University of California at Riverside and said he was grateful for the opportunity to run his own classroom at Georgia Southern for two semesters. Emphasizing the University\u2019s unique curriculum, Roberts said he was encouraged to foster and develop his teaching skills. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t trade teaching for anything,\u201d Roberts added. \u201cAbove all else, I encourage my students to think critically. In our information-filled world, it\u2019s easy to simply turn on \u2018auto-pilot\u2019 in our lives and go with the current. I want my students to find their own thoughts and their voice with which to express those thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Honored for Excellence in Research, Cameron Cato examined miniaturized antennas and wireless propagation. The electrical engineering graduate said his research explored a variety of areas including the design of several electrically small antennas and UHF wireless power transfer systems for the remote powering of wireless sensors. What that means he explained is to simply \u201ctransfer power wirelessly to remote sensors with the goal of eliminating or extending battery life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cato grew up in McDonough, Georgia, and said his fascination with radios and wireless communication began in high school as he pursued his amateur radio operator license. \u201cI started experimenting with antenna design and decided that it would be my profession,\u201d said Cato. \u201cTo be able to take a large antenna to shrink it down to a small package so it is more portable and easy to carry… to integrate it into a mobile or portable communication platform is an exciting field of study.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because his research involved computer simulation, design, prototyping and physical measurements, Cato said the cutting-edge technology in the University\u2019s Laboratory for Antennas and Wireless Propagation provided him with invaluable experience. \u201cI have been able to do antenna measurement which is essential to validate computer simulations… from that a prototype will be built and knowing how to test and measure is an important process in antenna design.\u201d<\/p>\n
He presented at the Graduate Research Symposium for two years and in his first year placed first for the project \u201cA Miniaturized Circularly Polarized, Parasitic Array Antenna for Ground Station Communication with Cube Satellites.\u201d<\/p>\n
Department of Electrical Engineering Professor Sungkyun Lim said Cato always displayed a strong responsibility and willingness to complete projects, even working on them after hours and on weekends. \u201cHe always maintained a positive outlook regardless of the amount of work we tended to throw at him,\u201d said Lim. \u201cCameron is a self-taught, forward thinker who likes grasping new concepts and ideas and seems to adapt quickly to learning new skill sets.\u201d<\/p>\n
The May 2014 graduate acknowledged he couldn\u2019t have asked for anything more than what he received from the Georgia Southern CEIT program. \u201cThis department is growing in reputation and from my experience you get a lot of hands-on experience and real world education that you may not get elsewhere.\u201d \u2013 Sandra Bennett<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 2014 Averitt Award Winners for Research and Instruction<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2215,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-2125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-summer-2014"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}