Katherine Birmingham ’16, a Mechanical Engineering major from Grove City, was recently awarded first place at the International Undergraduate Research and Design Exposition at the 2015 American Society of Mechanical Engineers International Mechanical Engineering Conference and Exposition.

She presented a poster on “Development of an Open Source, Affordable Hearing Aid” based on research conducted at Grove City College under the guidance of Dr. Lawrence Walker, professor of Electrical Engineering, and sponsored by the II-VI Foundation. In October, Birmingham was a top-10 finalist in the Undergraduate Technical Poster Competition at 2015 Society of Women Engineers conference in Nashville for this work.

Held Nov. 13 to 19 in Houston, Texas, ASME's International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition is the largest interdisciplinary mechanical engineering conference in the world. The conference plays a significant role in stimulating innovation from basic discovery to practical application.

For more info on the Mechanical Engineering Department: www.gcc.edu/mece.