Five Students and Staff Win 2026 Engineering Community Awards
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The Riccio College of Engineering (CoE) has honored five deserving students and staff with its 2026 Engineering Community Awards, which recognize individuals for their insightful efforts to develop a supportive and engaged engineering community, both within and outside of the university. The awardees are Ph.D. candidate Abu Bony Amin of the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department, senior undergraduate Matt Wong of the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department, and three CoE Directors of Finance and Administration, Sarah Byrne of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Alli Dean of Biomedical Engineering, and Jennifer Pease of the dean's office.
Amin has mentored more than 900 undergraduate students over four years as a First-Year Seminar Graduate Teaching Fellow and as a teaching assistant for Engin 112: Introduction to ECE and ECE 124: Introduction to Digital and Computer Systems. As his nomination explained, “What distinguishes Abu is not only his willingness to help, but the intentional and sustained way in which he does so.”
In acknowledgement of his outstanding teaching contributions, Amin was named one of the 2025-2026 UMass Amherst Distinguished Graduate Teaching Awardees. As an instructor, Amin focuses on strengthening students’ sense of academic belonging and confidence, mentoring students in academic planning and career development, and connecting them to campus resources and opportunities. Amin has also mentored high-school students through hands-on engineering projects for the college’s Summer Engineering Institute.
As a member of the Dean’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Advisory Group, Amin has advocated for improved support systems for international students. In addition, as a member and leader of the Graduate Muslim Student Association, he has helped design and implement programs to help newly arrived international students feel represented and welcomed within the campus community.
Wong has been a leader in the CEE department, particularly through his support of the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Wong was one of three students who organized and ran the 2025 ASCE Northeast Student Symposium at UMass in April of 2025, which included the Concrete Canoe and Steel Bridge Design competitions. He brought a positive and up-beat attitude, motivating others to step up and get involved.
As Wong’s nomination said, “Matt shows up everywhere with a smile on his face...He has a personality and kindness that people just gravitate towards, and he goes out of his way to make everyone feel welcome and important.”
As president of the Steel Bridge Design Team, Wong deliberately recruited and mentored the next generation of CEE undergraduate team leaders to replace all those who were graduating from the team. At the college level, Wong took it upon himself to resurrect the participation of UMass Amherst in the “Order of the Engineer,” a pledge to uphold professional and ethical standards, by coordinating with student organizations, department heads, the CoE dean, and the national organization.
Byrne, Dean, and Pease were nominated together for the Engineering Community Awards, but individually they have made significant impact on the CoE and the university.
Within MIE, Byrne worked to organize lab tours for staff, helping them better understand the research that their day-to-day efforts support. She introduced the “Above and Beyond Award” to recognize the exceptional effort of MIE staff. In addition, she organized the inaugural “Take Your Child to Work Day,” featuring interactive lab demonstrations, the launching of bottle rockets by the UMass Rocket Team, and a visit to the UMass Amherst Human Performance Lab.
Dean has worked continuously to foster a community through resource sharing, shared meals, and collective problem-solving. Her planned events in the BME help to build a community of shared success, care, and intention. For instance, she organizes regular lunches to benefit the relationship between faculty and staff in the department and, at all events with food, she orders enough for students, post docs, and research fellows. Outside the BME, she is on the Sunderland Finance Committee and the Frontier Regional School Committee.
Pease, beyond her work supporting the college community, is deeply engaged in her local community. She has been a long-term volunteer and leader within the Mohawk Athletic Association, the Ashfield Nilman Scholarship Committee, the Citizens Scholarship Committee, the Kiwanis Club of Shelburne Falls, the Sanderson Elementary Parent-Teacher Organization, and the Ashfield Park Commission.
As their collective nomination summed up their impact, “What distinguishes Alli, Jenn, and Sarah is not just the number of initiatives they have led, but the intentionality and care behind them. They have created opportunities for staff to feel seen, valued, and connected – contributions that are essential to a thriving community but often go unrecognized.” (June 2026)