Madani-Gordaninejad Speech Competition

Congratulations to our 2025 winners!

  • First place: Stephen Bard - "Advancing Roller Coasters with Adaptive Spike Motor Technology" 
  • Second place: Joshua Baughman - "Why Engineers Should Care About Linguistics"
  • Third place: Paris Acosta - "A Mirror Into the Human Psyche and the Bionic Smile"
2025 Speech Competition winners Joshua Baughan, second place; Stephen Bard, first place; and Paris Acosta, third place.

Past winners

  • 2024: Robert Gillespy, Mechanical Engineering, “The Total Solar Eclipse: An Unforgettable Spectacle”
  • 2023: Mark Marsala, Computer Science, “Overview of Security, Privacy, and Anonymity on The Onion Router Browser”
  • 2022: Erick Bandala Sanchez, Mechanical Engineering, “Printing the Future”
  • 2021: Olivia Tahti, Civil Engineering, “Still Water in Coal Run”
  • 2019: Mitchell Lane, Mechanical Engineering, “Rubik’s Cubes in Popular Culture”
  • 2018: Brett McMahan, Mechanical Engineering, “Why We Choose to be Comfortable Instead of Happy”

About the competition

Head shot of Azita Gordaninejad.

Faramarz Gordaninejad, a Regents and Foundation professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department, retired in 2017 after 33 years of service to the University of Nevada, Reno. He established the Madani-Gordaninejad Speech Competition in memory of his wife, Azita Madani Gordaninejad, in 2018. The goal of the speech competition is to improve the communication skills of engineering students.