Honors and awards

Pittsburgh Post Gazette, PA
May 24 2004

John A. Swanson, founder of the Southpointe software firm Ansys Inc.,
is the winner of this year’s John Fritz Medal awarded by the American
Association of Engineering Societies.

The medal, established in 1902, is considered one of the highest
awards in the engineering profession. Previous winners include Orville
Wright, Alexander Graham Bell and George Westinghouse. Swanson earned a
doctorate in applied mechanics at the University of Pittsburgh in 1966.

A University of Pittsburgh mathematics student, Sevak Lazarian,
placed 12th out of more than 3,600 undergraduates from 479 colleges
and universities and won $1,000 in the latest William Lowell Putnam
Mathematics Competition.

The annual competition is the most prestigious math contest for
undergraduates; on the first Saturday each December, students take
a six-hour test.

Originally from Yerevan, Armenia, Lazarian attended Moscow Institute
of Physics and Technology before coming to Pitt in 2001. He has
been accepted into the graduate math program at the University of
California, Berkeley.

Another Pitt student, Dorian Croitoru, received an honorable mention.
He plans to pursue his graduate studies at Pitt.