Materials Engineering senior Elizabeth Fadde was selected as the recipient of the 2010 UK College of Engineering, Lou Takacs Cooperative Education Award.  This award is given annually to a student who has completed at least three co-op semesters and has demonstrated exemplary performance and outcomes from that experience.

Fadde served as a co-op at General Electric (GE) Aviation as a materials applications engineer in the repair department in Evendale, OH.  In her first semester she created a system to rank welds based on their material integrity.  Fadde was also involved in one of the Material and Process Engineering Department’s (MPED) largest scale projects, the creation of new alloys low in rhenium (due to skyrocketing rhenium cost).  For this project, she evaluated the reliability of the new alloys by determining if they could successfully withstand the stripping and recoating processes.

In her second rotation, Elizabeth worked a dual role in materials applications engineering and materials development.  During this time, she conducted multiple leading indicator evaluations resulting in the extension of field use of high pressure turbine (HPT) blades. Fadde also worked on the development of calcium-magnesium-alumino-silicate (CMAS) resistant top-coatings for thermal barrier coatings (TBC) in the hottest parts of the engine.

In the summer of 2009, Fadde served as a co-op in GE Energy’s Engineering Headquarters in Greenville, SC where she managed cross-functional teams and grew in her technical understanding of materials and processes.  She led in developing a braze repair for advanced materials that are now being introduced into the fleet.

For her efforts, Fadde received five GE Awards of Excellence in just three co-op rotations, two of which were awarded in her first rotation, an accomplishment that is extremely rare for a GE co-op.  Recently, Fadde was accepted into GE Energy’s Edison Engineering Development Program, a two-year engineering leadership program for GE’s top talent.  She was one of 23 GE co-ops to be accepted into the program from the 110 GE co-ops interviewed.

Besides her stellar performance at GE, Elizabeth has also been an outstanding student in the Materials Engineering degree program. Fadde had a cumulative GPA of 3.36, and was a consistently good student.  In her first two years at UK, Fadde was a member of the UK Softball team, which competes in the Southeastern Conference.  While playing softball for UK, she maintained a GPA of 3.37.

Originally from West Lafayette, IN, Fadde became very active in her local communities during her time in Lexington.  She was the group leader for high school girls at her local church, was involved with community service projects in both Lexington and Greenville during her last co-op placement, and has been on a mission trip with campus athletes (Athletes in Action) to Southeast Asia.

Fadde has accepted a position in the Edison Engineering program with GE Energy in Greenville.