UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Tessa Beauchat has been named the summer 2023 student marshal for the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST). A Schreyer Honors College Scholar, she will receive her bachelor of science degree in human-centered design and development (HCDD) with a custom focus on universal design at the University’s commencement ceremony, which will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 12, in the Bryce Jordan Center at University Park.
Student marshals are selected for their outstanding academic achievement and contributions to student life. During the commencement ceremony, they lead the procession of the graduates from their college.
“It is an honor to be selected as student marshal,” Beauchat said. “Penn State has taught me that the power of community is intense. I have had incredible opportunities to get involved in both academic and extracurricular endeavors and have been amazed by what can be accomplished when a collective group works together for a great mission.”
Beauchat was a recipient of the Riegel Honors Scholarship for Women in Engineering. She also received the Paul S. Hagan Scholarship, the Summer Success Scholarship, the Ready to Succeed Scholarship and the Academic Excellence Scholarship. Beauchat was active in THON, Schreyer Student Council and Phi Beta Lambda Professional Fraternity.
As an undergraduate student, Beauchat interned at Alexander Building Construction Company and the Applied Research Laboratory at Penn State. She explored construction robotics with a research team in the Penn State Department of Architectural Engineering. Her conference paper for the for the American Society of Civil Engineers International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering, titled “Analyzing Schedule Dependency and Sequencing Changes for Robotic Construction Using Graph Analysis,” was subsequently published in the Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering.
“Through my honors thesis, I have worked to create a relational database model for construction robotics,” Beauchat said. “This work has combined my passion for architectural engineering and the database knowledge I have gained in my IST classes.”
Beauchat was on the dean’s list every semester and will graduate with a 3.88 grade-point average. After graduation, she will pursue a master’s degree in architectural engineering through a graduate assistantship at Penn State.
“I am excited to continue my research in construction robotics and pursue more specified research topics,” Beauchat said. “Accessibility is one of my greatest passions, so I intend to research how construction robotics can be used to enable skilled laborers who experience injury or disability to continue to work.”