Students Nominated for Prestigious Marshall and Rhodes Scholarships
Benjamin Lanava, E’24, environmental engineering, and Siddharth Simon, E’24, computer engineering/computer science, were nominated by Northeastern for the Marshall Scholarship and Lanava also for the Rhodes Scholarship. Both prestigious awards support study in the UK for those distinguished by their academic accomplishments, records of leadership, and drive to serve.
Benjamin Lanava COE’24, Environmental Engineering
Mentors: Jessica Ormsby, Annalisa Onnis-Hayden, Loretta Fernandez, Michaeline Albright, Rebecca Riccio
Nominations: Rhodes U.S., Marshall Scholarships
Home: Massachusetts
Benjamin Lanava hopes to provide communities around the world with access to safe, clean drinking water. Still early in his career, Ben has already done significant work to advance this goal. To prepare for this career in sustainability, Ben studies environmental engineering and has sought to complement his education with a number of important projects in the field. Ben’s work with water has been focused on two large projects. In one of these projects, for which he earned a PEAK Experiences Award, Ben has been researching plant-based strategies for the removal of harmful contaminants (PFAS and heavy metals). While this project focuses on the provision of clean water, Ben has also focused his efforts on providing basic access to water as a leader in Northeastern’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders. As a project lead for the chapter, Ben has been organizing both his peers and a large, rural community in Uganda to implement a solar-powered submersible pump for water treatment and distribution systems there. On campus, Ben serves as the Vice President of the New England Water & Environment Association, where he advances awareness and encourages engineers to pursue careers in civil engineering focused on environment and sustainability. Aside from organizing numerous park and river clean-ups, Ben is spearheading efforts with other members of NEWEA to make community gardens around Boston more accessible for people with various disabilities. Ben was an Udall Scholarship Honorable Mention in 2023.
Siddharth Simon COE/Khoury’24, Computer Engineering/Computer Science
Mentors: Mark Richardson, Lisa Gfrerer, Sumientra Rampersad, Leonard Knoedler
Nominations: Marshall Scholarship
Home: Massachusetts
Siddharth Simon is an aspiring MD/PhD, who hopes to make medical research more powerful through the use of data science. Arriving at Northeastern, Siddharth was eager to make an impact in the lives of others through research and joined the Brain Stimulation and Simulation Lab of Dr. Sumientra Rampersad. In this work, for which he earned a PEAK Experiences Ascent Award in the fall of 2020, Siddarth explored artificial intelligence, electricity, and magnetism in physics and neuroscience by studying the effects of head model precision on electric field simulation for non-invasive neurostimulation. Building from this experience, he joined the Brain Modulation Lab directed by Dr. Mark Richardson at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, improving, documenting, and presenting upon a data pipeline for an implantable neuromodulation device that was designed to treat patients with epilepsy. Fascinated by this work, Sid has continued work in this area, most recently working with Dr. Lisa Gftrerer Assistant Professor in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Weill Cornell Medicine to develop artificial intelligence as a diagnostic tool for headache disorders. Siddarth is the lead machine learning engineer and co-lead of software development on the project and his work has focused on optimizing a machine learning algorithm for the diagnostic mobile application for migraines on a multi-center study and transitioning the mobile application to a new platform. In his current research co-op, Siddharth will serve as an automation engineer at Generate Biomedicines, working on software to integrate machine learning data on the cloud with lab robotics systems to accelerate drug development. Outside of research, Siddarth serves as a first responder EMT and volunteers as a tutor for incarcerated youth through the Petey Greene Program. He was recognized as a Goldwater Scholar.