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"

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

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.