Winnie Tan, Valerie Wiesner, and Matthias Ehmke, PhD students in MSE, were awarded the Graduate Excellence in Materials Science (GEMS) award at this year’s Materials Science & Technology (MS&T) conference in Montréal, Canada. Among the top 10 finalists, three graduate students were selected for the Diamond award and seven for the Sapphire award. Winnie, who is advised by Profs. Rodney Trice and Alejandro Strachan, received the Sapphire award for her presentation, “Samarium and Thulium Doped High Emissivity Coatings for Hypersonic Applications Prepared by Plasma Spray.” Valerie, who is advised by Profs. Rodney Trice and Jeffrey Youngblood, received the Diamond award for her presentation, “Green Manufacturing of Near-Net Shape Ceramic Parts by Room-Temperature Injection Molding.” Matthias, who is advised by Profs. Keith Bowman and John Blendell, also received the Diamond award for his presentation, “Electric Field Dependent Domain Processes in Ba(Zr_0.2Ti_0.8)O₃-x(Ba_0.7Ca_0.3)TiO₃ Piezoceramics.” The awards are presented annually by the American Ceramic Society (ACerS) at the MS&T conference and are based upon the scientific and academic accomplishment of the student, the quality of the research presented, and the quality of the oral presentation.