Parrish Electrical Engineering Scholarship

Background

In 2007, I established a permanent endowment to fund the Donald M. Parrish Scholarship in Electrical Engineering at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa to honor my father.
He is a 1937 Electrical Engineering graduate of Iowa State. See his college résumé.

The scholarship fund is managed by the Iowa State University Foundation. Each year the winner is selected by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Since 2012 the winner has been one of the "best and brightest" sophomores in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Donald Maltby Parrish

I took this photo of my father, Donald M. Parrish, Sr. on his 87th birthday, September 8, 2001 at his home just 3 days before 9/11. Our ancestor owned the World Trade Center land in 1651.
This photo captures my father's positive outlook. He lived to be 91 and a half. There is more information on him on his page and there is a biographical sketch on his funeral page.

Photos of Visits

On July 16, 2013, I met with Shelly Jordan and John Glover of the Iowa State Foundation on one of their regular visits to Illinois. The enormous Woodfield Mall was a convenient location for our meeting. It was enjoyable to meet represenatives of the Iowa State Foundation in person for the first time. I set up my father's scholarship over the phone and via email in 2007.

On August 3, 2013, I met with Ravi Nagaraju and Ian McInerney, the first two sophomore winners of my father's scholarship. By chance they were both working summer interships at Caterpillar in Peoria. So I drove down and we had lunch. They are both impressive and ambitious young engineers. On the way home, I stopped by Eureka College to see the Reagan Museum.

On August 2, 2017, I had dinner with Shelly Jordan from Iowa State & Nolan Cardona, the 2017 winner of of my father's scholarship. We ate at the pleasant Cottage on Dixie in Homewood, Illinois near Nolan's home. He is working again this summer at Exelon Corporation - in 2017 at their Dresden nuclear power plant. We had a lively and enjoyable discussion at dinner.

Parrish Scholarship Winners

Ian McInerney - Winner in 2012

Ian McInerney was raised in Illinois and was selected to attend the prestigious Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) in Aurora. It is an internationally recognized residential public high school that “develops creative, ethical leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics”.

There Ian participated in the FIRST Robotics Competition on Team 2022 as the lead programmer and designer for the robot's control system. (See a video of this type of robotics competition.) That experience guided him towards a focus in control systems in Electrical Engineering at Iowa State.

At IMSA, Ian managed the Student Computing Support Team's Hardware Repair branch. He organized the certification training by laptop manufacturers for 5 fellow students and then directed their repair of damaged student laptops.

In 2007, Ian earned the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. For his service project, he planned and led a community book drive that collected over 3000 books for daycare centers around the Champaign-Urbana area.

At Iowa State, Ian is a member of the Honors Program and was on the Dean’s list his entire freshman year.

He has been involved with a number of technical projects. One is a CubeSat initiative to design a nano-satellite to orbit the Earth to gather data about radio emissions leaving the Earth’s atmosphere. Ian worked on the power subsystem and was in charge of designing the solar charging system.

Ian was a member of the High Altitude Balloon Experiments in Technology team (HABET). They attach a scientific payload to a helium-filled balloon and let it reach altitudes above 60,000 feet before bringing it back to the ground. Ian was responsible for designing the payload electrical systems and ensuring they were operational for the flight.

Ian is a member of the CySat development team that is designing Iowa State's first satellite for a planned future launch.

Ravi Nagaraju - Winner in 2013

Ravi Nagaraju was born in Madurai, India, and moved to Peoria, Illinois in 1996. He attended Richwoods High School, where he was involved in various extracurricular activities such as tennis, scholastic bowl, and a writer for the school newspaper.

Ravi also collected over 150 hours of community service at various organizations in central Illinois, including the American Red Cross. In 2009, he set the school record for most digits of pi (history) by memorizing an astonishing 314 digits. Ravi graduated as one of the top ten students.

At Iowa State, Ravi is a recipient of the prestigious George Washington Carver Scholarship (GWC), which covers full tuition. Through the program, he had the chance to present a poster at the 2012 Iowa State Conference on Race & Ethnicity (ISCORE). He has also served on the GWC Advisory Board.

Ravi is a member of the Honors Program, and served on the Honors Student Board Executive Committee as Webmaster. Ravi was also selected for the First-Year Honors Mentor Program.

The Mentor Program allowed him to perform research in the medical ultrasound field with Dr. Timothy Bigelow. Ravi co-authored the IEEE article: "Precision Control of Lesions By High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound Cavitation-Based Histotripsy Through Varying Pulse Duration."

For two summers, Ravi has worked as a summer engineering intern for Caterpillar in Peoria. In one project he developed a Python application that records the utilization metrics of an electronic control module tester to an external database.

The experience there has steered him towards pursuing a control systems emphasis in his electrical engineering program. This summer, he started teaching Python programming to high school students to spark interest in software-related fields.

Wyatt Lauer - Winner in 2014 and 2015

Wyatt Lauer was born and raised in Edina, Minnesota. In high school, he played hockey and worked part time at General Sports, a sporting goods store.

During high school, Wyatt volunteered in the Same Day Surgery wing at Fairview Southdale Hospital. He also volunteered at the Fraser School helping kids in a kindergarten classroom for autistic and/or physically challenged children.

At Iowa State, Wyatt is a member of IEEE. For Engineers' Week on campus, he was part of the team which set up a recruiting day for high school seniors to visit campus and learn about the Enginering Program to aid them in deciding to come to Iowa State.

Wyatt is a member of the Honors Program and did research with a graduate student studying how electromagnetics can be used to detect defects in conducting materials before they become dangerous to the structure.

Wyatt is also working on a Make to Innovate (M:2:I) project with two aerospace engineers with the goal of creating an autonomous drone for both space and Mars. This project is in the early stages and his focus is determining how to power the drone with available technology.

At the ACACIA Fraternity, Wyatt is the brotherhood chair. His responsibilities include setting up different activities (lunch, dinner, paintball, skating, etc.) for the fraternity to do together. This is a very selective fraternity of members with a high GPA who strive for academic and social excellence.

At Iowa State in addition to winning the Donald M. Parrish Scholarship, Wyatt was awarded the M. L. Jack Burgess Scholarship and a Academic Excellence Award from ACACIA Fraternity.

During the summer of 2014, Wyatt was an intern at Xcel Energy, a utility company based in Minneapolis. His main project was compiling a database of all of the current underground power lines used in the Minneapolis - St. Paul metro area. The objective was to improve maintenance operations.

At this point, Wyatt's goal is to work with the next generations of electrical power to discover and develop effective and economical methods of using renewable energy to power our country.

Wyatt Hull - Winner in 2016

Wyatt Hull was born in Santa Barbara, California and moved to Iowa in 2004. He attended Cowles Elementary, a public Montessori school, in Des Moines. He was fascinated by math & puzzles, enjoyed hands-on activities and was involved the Lego League competition for several years.

He attended Theodore Roosevelt High School and Central Academy / Central Campus. One unique class he took was homebuilding. In high school, Wyatt was the saxophone section leader in the concert band, ran cross country and played soccer at TRHS and the West Des Moines Soccer Club.

During high school, Wyatt volunteered at Camp Shalom and was a camp counselor at the Science Center of Iowa. He got a job at McDonalds at age 15 and later Qdoba Mexican Grill to save money for college.

Wyatt graduated in the top 3% of his class at Roosevelt. He received the President's Education Award and the AP Scholar of Distinction Award. He received the Richard Hewins Scholarship and the George "Pick" Wilson Scholarship.

At Iowa State, Wyatt is a member of the Honors Program. He received two 4 year scholarships: the Cardinal Leadership Scholar Award and the Academic Recognition Award. Wyatt was also awarded the H.S. Ostlin Memorial Scholarship his Freshman year.

As a Sophomore in addtition to the Donald M. Parrish Scholarship in Electrical Engineering, Wyatt was awarded the Horace & Doris Adams Electrical Engineering Scholarship.

Wyatt enjoys the engineering program with its problem solving, challenging homework assignments and labs. He focused on his class work the first year and has a 3.8 cumulative GPA. He participated in intramural sports, went snowboarding for the first time, and is eager to go snowboarding again.

Wyatt is looking forward to being part of a team when he joins an engineering club in the "Make to Innovate" program. He has the goal of finding an electrical engineering internship next summer to gain professional work experience.

Nolan Cardona - Winner in 2017

Nolan Cardona was raised in Flossmoor, Illinois. He attended Homewood-Flossmoor High School and played on the football team when it was the runner-up for IHSA 8A state championship in 2015. Nolan was also on the gymnastics team, and participated in Operation Snowball, a youth development program.

While in high school, he volunteered for You Matter 2, a philanthropic youth development group created by a fellow classmate. Nolan helped in various locations in the Chicago area including Habitat for Humanity and the Ronald McDonald House.

Also while in High School Nolan was a member of the business-oriented Distributive Education Club of America for two years. He competed in a financial services team event advancing to the state competition held in Rosemont, IL.

During the summer after high school graduation, he interned with Exelon Corporation as a result of taking a college engineering course in high school. Nolan worked in the Design Engineering department with full-time engineers on two projects. One involved determining if the use of an underwater drone would provide both improved safety and cost efficiency at all Exelon power generation locations. The other was implementing a way to reduce the costs of managing commitments required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

At Iowa State, Nolan joined Phi Sigma Pi honors fraternity, the National Society of Collegiate Scholars and was on the Dean’s list for the entirety of his freshman year. After his first semester, his transcript showed he was in the top 2% of the Engineering freshman.

Nolan participated in the Leadership through Engineering Academic Diversity (LEAD) program, which helps first year engineering students make a successful start at Iowa State.

Nolan returned to Exelon Corporation for a second summer in 2017. He worked with electrical engineers in the Systems Engineering department at the Dresden Nuclear Generating Station in Morris, IL. His main assignment was to review schematics for the transformers used in the plants.

Owen Swanberg - Winner in 2018

Owen Swanberg was raised in Kansas. He is the eldest of three children. Owen attended the Shawnee Mission South High School, and graduated in 2017.

While in high school, Owen was the varsity wrestling captain his Junior and Senior years. He was in the National Honor Society and was on the principal's honor roll every semester. He participated in Junior Naval ROTC and was Color Guard Commander and then the Battalion Commanding Officer. Owen was interviewed in the May 2017 Patriot, pages 18 and 19 about NROTC.

Outside of school, Owen was a member of the Boy Scouts and earned the Eagle Scout Award in 2015. And he attended Boys State in 2016. One of his hobbies is moutain biking.

In 2011 Owen established his own company, Cut Rite Lawn Service, learning customer service and negotiating skills at a young age. Later he added a job as a groundskeeper at the Brookridge Country Club Golf Course. In 2017, he worked at Brasstacks Residential Construction company in Kansas City. In 2017 and 2018, Owen was a summer intern at the Jacob's Well church in Westport Missouri.

During his first year at Iowa State, Owen has been active in the NROTC program. The Ames Tribute photographed him contributing blood while in uniform. Owen was a Squad Leader the second semester and will be the Color Guard Officer in his sophomore year. In the summer of 2018, Owen participated in the 4 week CORTRIMID program giving him hands on experience in all of the different warfare communities - submarines, aviation, surfaces ships and marines. After graduating from Iowa State his goal is to be commissioned as an Officer in the United States Navy.

Denise Orege - Winner in 2019

Denise Orege was born in Nairobi, Kenya. She moved to Zimbabwe briefly and thereafter moved to Johannesburg, South Africa in 2004. She attended St. Stithians Girls' College in South Africa and graduated in 2017.

During high school she played tennis and also played field hockey for the provincial team. She engaged in approximately 100 hours of community service by regularly assisting at an old age home, health clinic and rural school.

While in high school, Denise worked with an Electrical Engineer and classmate to fabricate a themoelectic flashlight powered by heat from human hands using Peltier tiles. She presented this thermoelectric flashlight at a regional science fair and won a bronze medal.

At Iowa State Denise was the recipient of the International Merit Scholarship. She is a member of the African Students Association and IEEE.

Denise was selected to participate in the Tau Beta Pi - Iowa Alpha Scholars Program and is a member of the Alpha Lambda Delta National Honor Society. In 2019 she joined a research group lead by Dr. Reza Zoughi where she will be a research assistant and engage in state-of-the-art research in microwave and millimeter wave imaging and nondestructive evaluation.

Denise is also a piano player. She has been playing piano since she was 6 and has won numerous awards by participating in local and national music competitions. She is currently pursuing a minor in music at Iowa State.

Madissen Lawrence - Winner in 2020

Madissen Lawrence was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and grew up in Hudson, Wisconsin. There, she attended Hudson High School and graduated in 2019 in the top 5% of her class.

During high school, Madissen was an active member of the band program. She played in the marching band and the school’s top concert band. Additionally, she was the trumpet section leader in the jazz band.

Madissen took many Project Lead The Way (PLTW) classes, where she learned about engineering. She also took several AP classes, as well as honors science and English classes.

Outside of school, she spent time volunteering through her high school’s National Honors Society. She volunteered as an AWANA leader and acted as a volunteer babysitter for local elementary school Parent Groups.

Madissen is currently majoring in Electrical Engineering at Iowa State University and has made the Dean’s List every semester since her enrollment.

While at Iowa State, Madissen joined the WiSE Program, Society for Women in Engineering (SWE), as well as Digital women. Madissen spends a great deal of her time attending meetings for SWE and Digital Women.

In her free time, Madissen likes to spend time outdoors and is an avid skier. She also enjoys reading and puzzles.

Madissen is currently working as an Undergraduate Research Assistant Lead at the Iowa State Virtual Reality Applications Center, where she manages a group of researchers and performs human subjects research using Virtual Reality.

Taylor Moore - Winner in 2021

Taylor Moore was born and raised in Bloomington/Normal, Illinois and attended University High School. During high school, she was very active in dance. She competed with her school’s dance team along with participating in an Orchesis Dance program led by a dance professor from the local university.

From day one of her high school career Taylor took a full load and also, took classes during her summer breaks. This allowed her the opportunity to graduate in three years so that she could start college early. She was also inducted into her high school’s National Honors Society.

Starting her freshman year at Iowa State, Taylor received the Adventure Award scholarship for maintaining a high GPA in high school, as well as receiving a separate scholarship for her ACT score. In her sophomore year, she was also awarded the Robert and Ardith Wilkins Engineering scholarship in addition to the Donald Parrish Electrical Engineering Scholarship

Upon admission to Iowa State, Taylor was accepted into the University Honors Program where she was able to participate in the Freshman Honors Mentor Program with Professor Rana Biswas. This led to him to offer her an opportunity to continue working with him in an internship during her sophomore year. This project researches water desalination to develop a device to purify water in places where clean water is not easily accessible.

At Iowa State she is a member of the Motion Sickness Dance Team. For this team, she was elected the Social Media Chair in the second semester of her freshman year and continued this role into her sophomore year. She loves this group because it gives her a social outlet and allows her to continue to dance.

Thomas Edwards - Winner in 2022

Thomas Edwards was born and raised in Overland Park, Kansas. He attended Blue Valley West High School and graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2021.

While attending high school, Thomas was involved in many academic honor societies and was President of the National Honor Society his senior year. He played soccer for four years and was a member of the Varsity team his junior and senior years.

Thomas took as many Honors and AP classes as he could in high school and maintained a 4.0 GPA. He also became a PSAT National Merit Commended Scholar due to his performance on the PSAT, a national standardized test. For his education in the Spanish language, he received the Kansas State Gold Seal of Biliteracy.

Thomas found meaningful leadership roles in Sources of Strength and Zero Reasons Why, two organizations that promoted mental health awareness and suicide prevention. As an executive member in both clubs he helped found Blue Valley West’s first ever mental health awareness week, which promoted mental health resources available in the community.

At Iowa State, Thomas is involved in Emerging Leaders of Engineering, National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), and IEEE Eta Kappa Nu Honor Society (HKN). He is currently serving as the initiation chair for HKN, an organization that only invites the upper echelon of electrical and computer engineering students for induction.

Thomas is currently pursuing a major in Electrical Engineering and a minor in Spanish Language and Culture for Professionals. He completed a semester of research through the Freshman Honors Mentor Program with Dr. Santosh Pandey in the Spring of 2022. Thomas is also working as a tutor with the Iowa State Academic Success Center, where he provides assistance for STEM classes.

Andrew J. Chandler - Winner in 2023

Andrew Chandler was born and raised in San Diego, California.

In middle school, Andrew took his first technology course, which introduced him to Arduino and ignited his passion for Electrical Engineering.

During high school, he continued to follow his passion by learning how to solder and make projects in his garage. During this time, he also expanded into the world of 3D printing.

At Iowa State, Andrew is currently Treasurer of IEEE since Spring of 2023 and a member since Fall of 2022. Andrew helps host various info sessions with companies (Honeywell, Caterpillar, Collins Aerospace) to come and talk to students about internship and co-op opportunities.

Andrew is a member of the Alpha Lambda Delta, which is a nationally recognized Honor Society. Andrew has made the Dean's list every semester since the Fall of his Freshman year, with a cumulative GPA of 3.80.

For his Freshman year, Andrew received the Adventure Award (Academic Achievement Award) for his academic excellence in high school. For his sophomore year, Andrew was awarded, in addition to the "Donald M. Parrish Scholarship in Electrical Engineering", he was awarded the "Don K. Ford Electrical Engineering Scholarship".

In the near future, Andrew's goal is to obtain an Electrical Engineering internship this summer to gain professional work experience. After graduating from Iowa State, his goal is to pursue his doctorate in Electrical Engineering.

Jeremy Bruecken - Winner in 2008

Jeremy Bruecken from Waukee, Iowa was the first recipient of the Donald M. Parrish Scholarship in Electrical Engineering. In high school, Jeremy was in the top 10% of his class with a 4.0 GPA. Jeremy was the President of the Ping Pong club, achieved Life Scout Rank in the Boy Scouts and was on the design team for the Ultimate Mileage Vehicle contest. He also spent a lot of time working to earn money for college. Jeremy's long time interest in electronics and work on an independent project re-building an old robot led him to decide on Electrical Engineering. At Iowa State he won the President's Award for Competitive Excellence and has joined the Kappa Sigma fraternity.

Alfonso Raymundo - Winner in 2010

Alfonso Raymundo is from Washington, Iowa, one of the 100 best small towns in America. In high school, he was in the top quarter of his class with a GPA of 3.66. His hobbies include figuring out how remote-controlled helicopters work, robotics, and anime. Alfonso’s parents own a local grocery story. He has 2 brothers and a sister. He is the first in his family to attend college. Alfonso also won a MVP scholarship that pays for his tuition. Alfonso worked at Iowa State this summer as an intern to Professor Ramamoorthy in the Summer Program for Enhancing Engineering Development (SPEED), where he studied the feasibility of using Simulink for programming Software Defined Radios.