Stefany Escobedo awarded Towner prize for her outstanding contributions as a Graduate Student Instructor

Master’s student Stefany Escobedo has been awarded a Richard F. and Eleanor A. Towner Prize for Outstanding GSIs from the College of Engineering. This award recognizes her exemplary service as a Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) for EECS 461: Embedded Control Systems during the Fall 2020 and Winter 2021 semesters.

Escobedo was part of the team that had to completely reinvent the course due to the impact of COVID-19. She took the lead on reorganizing the entire lab so that it could serve both in person and remote students, which included setting up and adapting technology for remote learning and ensuring the lab setup would satisfy social distancing requirement for in person students.

Students in the course praised Escobedo’s commitment and compassion. She helped rewrite ambiguous lab manuals, was regularly available past her assigned office hours, and created video tutorials that have become a new permanent component of course resources. She also looked out for students who were struggling with stress and helped refer them to mental health resources and counseling centers on campus.

“Stefany is in a league of her own,” said Prof. James Freudenberg who taught the course. “She made a difficult time better for her students and permanently changed the way we teach the class.”

Stefany is in a league of her own. She made a difficult time better for her students and permanently changed the way we teach the class.

Prof. James Freudenberg

Escobedo earned her BSE in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2020, and she completed her MSE in ECE in 2021 through the 3.4 Program. She focused on Embedded Systems, specializing in the intersection of engineering and medicine. She is interested in using machine learning to improve medical technology and health outcomes.

While at Michigan, she was part of MEDPREP (a post-baccalaureate premedical program), served as an ECE Ambassador, was president of the Student Veterans of America (SVA) University of Michigan chapter, was a board member of IEEE, and was a member of the engineering honor societies HKN and Tau Beta Pi, as well as the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.

Escobedo has been a member of the U.S. Air Force for the past ten years and is currently serving on assignment.