LWA Alum Wins Prestigious National Achievement Award

January 15, 2010

Samuel del Pilar '08 is one of 75 students nationwide selected for scholarships from the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC). He is a sophomore at University of Massachusetts Amherst and is majoring in mechanical engineering.

The HENAAC Scholars Program addresses the “immense need” of the United States to produce more domestic engineers and scientists. The goal of the program is to foster college retention of Hispanic undergraduates with a 3.0 grade point average or higher; to encourage their graduation with a technical degree in four-to-five years; and to contribute to Hispanic communities by producing role models for future generations.

HENAAC was established in 1989 as a means of identifying, honoring, and documenting the contributions of outstanding Hispanic-American science, engineering, technology, and math professionals. Corporations, government agencies, academic institutions, the military, and the business community at large have submitted thousands of nominees over the last 19 years for this prestigious recognition.

He recently visited LWA to speak to juniors and seniors about the University of Massachusetts, as well as the field of engineering.In the spring semester this year, he will be doing an independent research in the Biomechanics Lab on the improvement of the basketball sneaker to prevent knee and ankle injuries. Nike is donating various types of footwear for his research as examples of the new technologies in their current basketball shoe. He is currently in the process of applying for a summer internship with Nike's Research and Development team, and is hopeful that he will be able to spend his summer vacation engaged in this work.