Timothy Ayodele (CompE ’18) and Lissette Beltran (EE ’18) have been selected to jointly deliver the student address at the 2018 Armour College of Engineering Unit Ceremony on Saturday, May 12. They were selected for this honor based on their accomplishments and dedication to the Armour College of Engineering community from a pool of engineering students who competed within the 2018 Armour College of Engineering Commencement Speaker Competition.

Ayodele will be graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering, and is a Camras and Kershner Scholar with an impressive history of internships and research. He led a team of developers to create an interactive map with an algorithm that tracks and updates a ‘quality of life’ factor for different regions in the Chicagoland area using city databases, winning the CS2050 Hackathon. Ayodele was also the Interprofessional Projects Program (IPRO) Project Track Winner last November for his team project focused on automation for infrastructure maintenance. He has been extremely active within the Illinois Tech chapter of Engineers Without Borders, traveling to Nicaragua in spring 2017. He also served as treasurer for Delta Tau Delta fraternity and a WIIT DJ.

Beltran will be graduating with a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering. Beltran spent two semesters and two summers working for various organizations within NASA—as a software developer for Flight Operations, helping with robotics and testing the functionality of NASA’s new prototype spacesuit for deep space missions. She will be a robotics engineer for NASA upon graduation. Beltran was president of the Illinois Tech Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) and a Leadership Academy Scholar.

Both children of immigrants, they have a unique but common shared experience with many who are graduating this weekend. They will jointly address all graduates at the 2018 Armour College of Engineering Commencement Ceremony in a combined speech full of inspiration, diversity, and empowerment.