Among all graduate student researchers, only two will receive the annual Outstanding Graduate Student Researcher award and only one can be deemed the highest scoring applicant, and in 2015, that student is Mehrdad Majidi.

He was recognized as the 2015 Outstanding Graduate Student Researcher due to his achievements in engineering research. President Marc Johnson gave Majidi his awarded certifications, signed and sealed by Governor Brian Sandoval, at the University of Nevada, Reno "Honor the Best" Ceremony May 12.

"Mehrdad has an unusually high number of publication in top Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers journals for a graduate student," M. Sami Fadali, professor of electrical and biomedical engineering, said. "He is the type of student who will pursue a research question until he gets answers rather than give up after the first obstacle. He does not need to be led by the hand, as less mature students do, but is not above asking for advice and help when needed."

Majidi has not only received the highest score and the Outstanding Graduate Student Researcher award, but has received many other honors as well during his short time at the University. He began his time at the University in 2013 and successfully completed all of the required courses for his degree with a 4.00 grade-point average.

During his last two years of research in electrical and biomedical engineering he proposed novel fault location paradigms in electrical power system networks using "compressive sensing," an emerging signal processing technique. His extraordinary results have been published in four highly prestigious journals in the field of electrical power engineering, including IEEE journals.

"Over the years, I have been covering a subject matter regarding power system fault computation that is not clearly covered by any text book" Professor Mehdi Etezadi-Amoli said, "Mehrdad was the only student who applied the technique to innovative ideas that he had and published several top rated peer reviewed IEEE Transactions papers."

Majidi has multiple other papers based upon his research that are either currently awaiting review or ready for submission.