Carson named chemical engineering student marshal for 2019 spring commencement
4/17/2019
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Drew V. Carson will be the chemical engineering student marshal for the College of Engineering’s 2019 spring commencement ceremony on May 3. Carson will receive a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering with a minor in mathematics.
College of Engineering student marshals are selected for their outstanding academic achievement and contributions to engineering student life.
Carson has chosen Manish Kumar, associate professor of chemical engineering, to be his faculty escort.
“Drew is very well prepared and careful in his work. It is hard to find mistakes in what he does, and he definitely prepares in advance for everything,” Kumar said. “He is a brilliant student and an excellent researcher.”
Carson is the son of David and Linda Carson of Lititz and is a 2015 graduate of Warwick High School in Lititz. He came to Penn State driven by both a passion for science and childhood memories with his older sister, Vanessa, who has Down Syndrome.
“Seeing her struggle inspired me to want to use my talents to help people in similar situations,” Carson said.
Carson’s academic honors and achievements include the President’s Freshman Award and the Penn State nominee for the American Institute of Chemical Engineering’s (AIChE) John McKetta Scholarship. He was the recipient of the Endowment for the Chemical Engineering Department Undergraduate Scholarship, the McWhirter Undergraduate Scholarship, the Dow Summer Research Endowment Scholarship, the Penn State Biofellowship, the Behmer Memorial Engineering Scholarship, the Penn State Lancaster Alumni Association Scholarship and the Larry Duda Scholarship. He also had a freshman English essay published in Penn Statements, a collection of outstanding student writing from first-year writing courses at Penn State.
Carson is a member of the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society and the Omega Chi Epsilon Chemical Engineering Honor Society.
A Schreyer Scholar, he completed an undergraduate honors thesis titled “Engineering and Analysis of Biomimetic Membranes Using the Highly Permeable Outer Membrane Protein, OmpF.” In addition, Carson completed another research project under the direction of Kumar titled “Small Molecule Diffusion Rates Through Lipid Vesicles with Embedded Proteins Using Stopped Flow Fluorimetry.” He presented his research at the 2017 and 2018 Penn State Research Experience for Undergraduates Symposium and the 2018 National AIChE Student Conference Undergraduate Poster Competition.
While at Penn State, Carson held an internship at Eurofins Lancaster Laboratories, working with laboratory staff to develop a new system to inventory and retrieve samples. He also worked in the Penn State Department of Chemical Engineering as an instructional aide and held grading assistant positions in the Penn State Department of Mathematics and the Department of Chemistry.
After graduation, Carson will pursue a doctoral degree in chemical engineering at Princeton University with a focus on bioresearch.
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