March 17, 2017
Best in Creativity winners Ronda Strauch and Sai Siddhartha Nudurupati; Best in Cinematography winner Molly Grear; and honorable mention recipients Begum Birsoz and Wenxin Lin, from left.
Perhaps it’s their problem-solving mindset or technical skills, but it turns out that engineers are naturals at film making. This was evidenced at UW CEE’s inaugural student film contest on March 16. A panel of judges evaluated six student-made films and selected the following winners:
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Best in Cinematography: Ph.D. student Molly Grear I Watch the Video
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Best in Public Communication: Ph.D. students Ronda Strauch and Sai Siddhartha Nudurupati I Watch the Video
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Best in Creativity: Undergraduate student Veronica Wang I Watch the Video
- Honorable Mentions:
Undergraduate student Begum Birsoz I Watch the Video
Graduate student Wenxin Lin I Watch the Video
Students began working on their videos in fall 2016. As several students had no prior filmmaking experience, UW Video hosted several sessions to provide technical help. The contest was organized by associate professor Faisal Hossain, a filmmaker in his spare time.
Hossain’s motivation to found the contest stems from his passion to share information about the important work of civil and environmental engineers, which is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary and diverse, he said. He also hopes to inspire and teach students about the importance of being skilled communicators.
“It’s a very important process for our students to become master communicators,” Hossain said. “The work of civil and environmental engineers permeates life and society not only through the usual notions of buildings, construction, highway and clean water, but also through energy, resources, the environment and more.
Hossain hopes to organize another film contest again in two years. Building upon the success of this year’s contest, he hopes to eventually open it up to students from engineering schools across the U.S.
“We want this to evolve into the nation’s first engineering film festival open to all engineering majors in the U.S.” Hossain said.
Congratulations to the winners!
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