First Place - Southwest Virginia MACC (Mountain Academic Competition Conference) Competitions, 3 Consecutive Years 1993 - 1995 (Captain).

  Second Place - Virginia State Forestry Camp Competition (1993).

  Fourth Place - Virginia State Beta Science Competition (1994).

 Competed in televised high school competitions (1993-1994), WDBJ7 - Roanoke, VA.

  First Place - Practical Section of the fifth annual international competition at the ISA/TECH 97 Expo in Anaheim, CA.

  Fourth Place - ISA Bowl - fifth annual international competition at the ISA/TECH 97 Expo in Anaheim, CA.

  Best Paper Award - Human Factors Division, 2004 IERC Research Conference, Houston, TX.

Memberships

   (2001 - Present) - IIE (Institute of Industrial Engineers)

  (2002 - Present) - ASQ (American Society for Quality)

  (2002 - 2003) - HFES (Human Factors and Ergonomics Society)

(1999 - 2000) - AMS (American Mathematical Society)

(1998 - 1999) - IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)

(1996 - 1998) - ISA (Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society)

Honor Societies

    Alpha Pi Mu

   Alpha Epsilon Lambda

   Phi Kappa Phi

1.  Khasawneh, M. T., Marie, A., Zhang, J., Zain El Abdein, T., Bowling, S. R., "A System Dynamics Approach to Modeling China's Population," Proceedings of the Modeling, Simulation, & Gaming Student Capstone Conference, Suffolk VA, April, 2008. (2nd place VMASC 2008 Student Capstone Competition)

2.  Tetteh, E. G., Jiang, X., Mountjoy, D. N., Bowling, S. R., Gramopadhye, A. K., and Khasawneh, M. T., "An Evaluation of Systematic Search Strategies on Inspection Performance Using a Job-Aiding Tool," Proceedings of the Industrial Engineering Research Conference, Selected as Best Ergonomics Paper, Houston, Texas, May 15-19, 2004.

Students Take Center Stage at VMASC

Students from all over the country came to the Virginia Modeling, Analysis & Simulation Center Thursday to compete in the 2008 Student Capstone Conference. The conference is part of the weeklong celebration for VMASC's 10th anniversary.

Students participating in the Capstone gave presentations of their research in military and homeland security, discipline/body of knowledge, medical modeling, general science and modeling and simulation in engineering to some of the field's experts in government, academia and industry.

An evening banquet with awards capped off the day. The following students won in their respective categories:

Military and homeland security: first place, Saikou Diallo, Old Dominion University; second place, Derek Overby, Texas A&M; and third place, Anthony Devivi, Old Dominion University.

Discipline/body of knowledge: first place, Michael Spiegel and Ross Gore, University of Virginia; second place, Siakou Diallo, Old Dominion University: and third place, Charles Turnitsa, Old Dominion University.

Medical modelin: first place, Yufei Shen, Old Dominion University; second place, Miao Liu, Old Dominion University; and third place Elaine Blount, Old Dominion University. General science: first place, David Horres and Ross Gore University of Virginia; second place, Rachel Phillips, Old Dominion University; and third place, Trishal Khetia, Old Dominion University.

Modeling and simulation in engineering: first place, Kittisak Koombua, Virginia Commonwealth University; second place, Yang Xu, Old Dominion University; and third place, Mahmoud Khasawneh, Ahmed Marie, Jun Zhang and Tariq Zain El Abdein, Old Dominion University.

At the reception, Patrick Driscoll, a professor of operations research at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, spoke to all of the participants. He said the true beauty of this competition is the students get to have good, constructive discussions with some of the nation's leaders in modeling and simulation.

"It wasn't just you come here and compete," he said. "It was about having judges ask meaningful questions about what you do."

He said these capstones "create a culture of success" for those participating in them.

Similarly, when Michael McGinnis, executive director for VMASC, concluded the night's event, he said he hoped everyone "enjoyed the intellectual discourse, sharing of ideas, competition and fellowship" of the day.

For more information about VMASC or the capstone event, log onto www. vmasc.odu.edu/capstoneconference.

- by Lauren Wicks