Schenkelberg, Meade win Schewe Leadership Awards

Scott Schenkelberg and Zachary Meade have been selected as the winners of the 2017 Al and Dorothy Schewe Leadership Award, given annually to College of Engineering students in recognition of achievement in leadership within the college.

From a field of 38 applicants, Schenkelberg and Meade were chosen to receive $1,000 awards. The applicants submitted resumes and a short essay. These applications were judged on leadership, involvement and educational projects and achievement.

Schenkelberg, a native of Omaha, Nebraska, graduated on May 6 with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and has been part of numerous groups that served the College of Engineering.

He held three offices within the Engineering Student Advisory Board (eSAB), including 2015-16 president and four offices in the National Association of Engineering Student Councils (NAESC), including 2016-17 president and chairman.

Schenkelberg was also the engineering senator on the ASUN Student Government from 2016-17. He also was a member of the Honors Program Student Advisory Board Student Life Committee, Engineering Diplomats, and engineering honors societies Pi Tau Sigma and Tau Beta Pi.

Meade, a native of Bedford, Indiana, is a senior in electrical engineering on the Scott Campus (Omaha) and serves in many organizations within the college, focusing on those that help student veterans or advocate the increased representation of women in STEM fields.

In addition to being president of the University of Nebraska-Omaha Student Veteran Organization and past president of the Business Professionals of America, Meade tutors fellow students, is a member of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Society of Women Engineers, has volunteered at the Nebraska Robotics Expo and Prairie STEM, and is in the UNO Honors Program and the Phi Kappa Phi and Tau Beta Pi honors societies.

In serving four years as a full-time member of the Army, Meade advanced to the rank of E5 (sergeant) and worked as a bomb disposal technician and emergency medical technician.

Meade is now continuing that work as a staff sergeant in the Nebraska Air National Guard Reserve and as an engineering student, where he works as a research assistant in the UNO Department of Biomechanics to improve prosthetic devices used by lower-limb amputees.