Leo Marek, senior in electrical and computer engineering, has received the 2026 Robert H. Parks Award for Excellence in Engineering Leadership. The award is given to a senior who displays leadership in and outside the classroom and comes with a $5,000 prize.
“What strikes me in particular about Leo is his high level of engagement, which has been critical to his leadership style,” said Joseph Young, Assistant Teaching Professor in electrical and computer engineering. “He brings a unique energy to the team that is hard to find in others… I appreciate not only his effectiveness but also his care in helping his peers find important opportunities as well as wanting to emotionally support them. Leo’s selfless leadership is truly important for a functional and joyful community.”
Mareks’ leadership experience at Rice includes student clubs, academic research and mentoring, and industry internships. As President of the Rice IEEE Student Chapter, he organized technical talks, recruiting events, and community-building activities that connected students with leading companies in hardware, software, and AI. This required aligning a team around a shared vision, and building relationships with external partners like Google, Apple, Samsung, Texas Instruments, and HP Enterprise.
Marek also served as captain of the Rice Sailing Team, where leadership required a different kind of discipline. He led practices, managed travel and competition logistics, and mentored younger sailors as they developed into competitive teammates. During his time as captain, the team achieved multiple top-three conference finishes and won the Regional Teams Championship. More importantly, they developed a culture of accountability and continuous improvement that extended beyond individual performance.
“Serving as captain of Rice Sailing reinforced my belief that strong teams are built through consistency, shared standards, and leadership by example,” said Marek.
At the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK), Marek served as a student leader supporting over 60 design teams working on real-world engineering projects. His role involves helping teams navigate the design and build process by connecting them with appropriate tools, manufacturing resources, and technical guidance. Working across a wide range of projects, from medical devices to Department of Defense-sponsored systems, he learned to operate in multidisciplinary environments and provide targeted support that enables others to execute effectively. As a Teaching Assistant in both the Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science departments, he supported over 400 students, helping them break down complex problems, debug their thinking, and build confidence in their technical abilities.
“I view [TA] roles as an opportunity to multiply impact,” said Marek, “helping students develop skills that would extend far beyond a single course.”
At Rice, Marek focuses his research on developing a very large instruction word (VLIW) RISC-V architecture to accelerate signal processing workloads. This work spans instruction set design, compiler development, simulation, and hardware implementation on FPGA. The goal is to improve performance by restructuring how computation is expressed and executed at the architectural level. His team collaborated with Google and AMD to build this across the stack. Marek was able to work from high-level abstractions to hardware implementation to create meaningful performance improvements.
As part of a bioengineering project in Costa Rica, Marek worked on designing a low-cost, open-source negative pressure wound therapy device for hospitals with limited access to medical equipment. This experience required balancing technical performance with cost, usability, and manufacturability, while working closely with clinicians to ensure the solution met real needs. Leadership in this context meant adapting quickly, making practical tradeoffs, and focusing on solutions that could be deployed in practice rather than remaining theoretical.
Marek completed his industry internship at NVIDIA, where he observed fragmented workflows and slow coordination between teams, causing significant GPU infrastructure downtime. He designed and built an AI-driven solution that automated failure detection and routing, significantly reducing the need for manual intervention. This system reduced downtime by approximately 80% and decreased manual effort by 75%, and it was adopted across thousands of engineers. This experience demonstrated that impactful engineering leadership often comes from reframing problems and addressing underlying inefficiencies in how systems and teams operate.
“Across all of my experiences,” Marek said, “a consistent theme in my leadership has been ownership and a focus on leverage. I am drawn to problems that are ambiguous or constrained by existing assumptions, and I work to reframe them in ways that make meaningful progress possible. Whether leading organizations, mentoring students, or building technical systems, I aim to create structures that enable others to succeed and that continue to generate impact over time.”
After graduation, Marek plans to pursue a master's in electrical and computer engineering and pursue work in AI systems for hardware infrastructure at NVIDIA. Looking forward, he is interested in building systems and organizations at the intersection of hardware and intelligent software, where he believes there is significant opportunity to improve how complex systems are designed and operated.
“My time at Rice has been defined by a consistent focus on building systems (technical, organizational, and cultural) that scale beyond my individual contribution,” said Marek. “Across leadership roles, teaching, and engineering work, I have sought out opportunities where impact comes not from executing within a system, but from improving or creating the system itself.”
Also honored are Giovanna Veras, senior in electrical and computer engineering, and Megan Worstell, senior in mechanical engineering, who received the 2026 RCEL Engineering Leadership Award and will share the prize. The award is given to a senior “whose qualities of character, leadership and responsibility have been outstanding during their undergraduate years at Rice.”
At Rice, Giovanna Veras has served in several leadership positions in student clubs. For the Rice Robotics Club, she served as Electronics Lead leading a 10-member engineering team designing and building combat robots during the club’s first year after its post-COVID revival. The experience focused on coordinating teams of different subsystems while maintaining motivation and momentum even when early competitions did not result in podium finishes.
Veras also served as Head Student Director for the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership Student Leadership Team, mentoring students in the certificate program while managing leadership teams and teaching assistants. In this role, she led initiatives to strengthen community engagement, contributed to record retention in the program, and increased the number of students applying for leadership roles within the organization.
“Giovanna took my ELEC 422 VLSI Systems Design course in the spring of 2025,” said Joseph Young, Assistant Teaching Professor in electrical and computer engineering. "In my class, students design a custom VLSI ASIC in a team of three students. Giovanna was the clear leader of her team and helped to guide the project to a successful design. Giovanna is highly motivated and has been involved in successful research projects.”
“During my time at Rice, I did not try to change who I am - I am still just as introverted as when I arrived - but instead learned to better understand my strengths and weaknesses and how to leverage them effectively in leadership roles,” said Veras. “My biggest lesson is that leadership is not only about achieving results, but also about creating a culture where others feel supported, motivated, and empowered.”
After graduation, Veras will pursue a master's degree in electrical and computer engineering at Rice University.
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As Student Director for the Rice Center for Engineering Leadership (RCEL), Megan Worstell helped shape the direction of a program dedicated to developing engineering leaders. She managed multiple sub-teams and worked to improve recruitment, programming, and engagement for over 50 students, strengthening her ability to lead through influence and align teams around shared goals. Worstell prioritized mentorship as an RCEL Teaching Assistant and Mechanical Engineering Teaching Fellow, coaching students in both technical and leadership development.
Worstell served as Head Coordinator for McMurtry College Beer Bike, leading a team responsible for planning and executing a large-scale, week-long campus event. This required coordinating logistics, managing safety protocols, and working with diverse stakeholders, reinforcing my ability to lead under pressure and adapt quickly. In her professional experience with Oncor Electric Delivery and as a team lead for her senior capstone project, Worstell has performed in technical environments by collaborating across disciplines, contributing to infrastructure design, and guiding team progress toward defined goals.
“During my time at Rice, I have intentionally developed as a leader by seeking opportunities to lead teams, navigate complex challenges, and invest in the growth of others,” said Worstell. “Through these experiences, I have grown into a leader who values communication, accountability, and ethical responsibility.”
After graduation, Worstell will begin her career as an Associate Engineer at Oncor Electric Delivery.