Standardization News

Castellanos and Hirsch Receive 2013 Awards

ASTM International has announced the recipients of the society's 2013 Graduate Scholarship: Bernardo Castellanos, a Ph.D. candidate in civil engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Va., and Michael Hirsch, a Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Ga.

The objective of the ASTM scholarship program is to enhance a student's knowledge, understanding and application of ASTM International and its standards. The ASTM Graduate Scholarship rewards graduate students (master's or doctoral) who have demonstrated high levels of interest in or involvement with ASTM standards.

Castellanos' focus at Virginia Tech is geotechnical engineering. He has referenced several standards from ASTM International Committee D18 on Soil and Rock while conducting research for his dissertation on fully softened shear strength. A graduate of Utah State University, Logan, Utah, where he received a master's degree in civil engineering, Castellanos also holds a bachelor's in civil engineering from the Instituto Technologico de Santo Domingo in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He is a certified engineer in training and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Golden Key Honor Society.

Hirsch received a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Mass., and his master's in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech. He is an active member of ASTM Committee E08 on Fatigue and Fracture, and contributed to the development of ASTM E2789, Guide for Fretting Fatigue Testing, through his Ph.D. research on the subject. He has published seven papers, and he received the Robert Waterhouse Best Paper Award at the 6th International Symposium on Fretting Fatigue in 2010. Outside ASTM International, Hirsch is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, ASM International (formerly the American Society for Metals) and the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers.

For more information about ASTM International's student membership, scholarships and other academic activities, visit the Students and Professors section of the ASTM website.