Outstanding Junior and Senior Named

MELBOURNE, FLA. — At Florida Tech’s annual Honors Convocation, Matthew Herdiech was named Outstanding Junior and Britney Pennington was named Outstanding
Senior. They were chosen by a faculty committee from among the Outstanding Junior and Senior awardees within each academic area.
Herdiech, a chemical engineering major, has served as vice president and president of the Florida Tech student chapter of the American Institute of
Chemical Engineers and is currently the captain of the university’s Chem-E-Car team. He has worked with two Florida Tech professors, James Brenner and Paul
Jennings, as research assistant and literature assistant, respectively. The 2006 recipient of the Chemical Engineering Outstanding Sophomore, Herdiech has
also received the Donald F. Othmer Sophomore Academic Excellence Award and the Williams College Book Award. He is from Greenfield, Mass.
Pennington, who will graduate on May 5 with a degree in molecular biology, is a member of the Tri-Beta Honor Society and Phi Eta Sigma National Honor
Society. She won first place in the 2006 Chem-E-Car competition and was selected for the Student Advisory Committee for the College of Science. She has
also interned at Cornell University, working on a Plant Genome Research Project. She is from Orlando, Fla. After graduation, Pennington hopes to work with
the Department of Energy where she will research producing fuels from biomass.