UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Varumporn Pimsen has been named the student marshal for the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences' fall 2017 commencement ceremony. She will lead the college’s procession of graduates during the Penn State undergraduate commencement ceremony at 9 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 16, at the Bryce Jordan Center on the University Park campus.
Pimsen is graduating summa cum laude with a 4.0 GPA in petroleum and natural gas engineering and minor in energy business and finance. She selected Sanjay Srinivasan, professor and head of the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering, to escort her as the college’s faculty marshal.
“I am extremely honored to be selected to represent the college at the fall commencement ceremony,” said Pimsen. “As an international student, I can’t really imagine how isolated and overwhelmed I would have felt without the help and support from my family, friends and faculty members at Penn State. This University makes me feel like I have been at home away from home. It is also my great pleasure to be in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, which is made up of an understanding and supportive group of people and is full of the resources students need to develop both academically and personally. This honor I received is not only thanks to my hard work but also to the encouragement from everyone both at Penn State and in Thailand.”
Pimsen has won many honors for academic excellence, including a Royal Thai Government Scholarship from the government of Thailand. During her undergraduate career at Penn State, Pimsen also has held several impressive internships. She worked two summers as a reservoir engineer for Chevron in Thailand and subsequently as an engineering and maintenance engineer for a state-owned oil and gas company. This past summer, she worked as a production engineer for Newfield Exploration in The Woodlands, Texas. Pimsen has accepted a full-time petroleum engineer position at Newfield Exploration and will start after graduation.
Pimsen has participated in research while an undergraduate student. She was selected to join in Penn State’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) “Big Data Analytics for Natural Fracture Detection from Subsurface Datasets.” The REU is hosted by the Penn State Initiative for Geostatistics and GeoModeling Applications (PSIGGMA) and funded by the National Science Foundation. Pimsen also has been active in fundraising for Penn State’s THON, a student-run philanthropy committed to enhancing the lives of children and families impacted by childhood cancer.
Pimsen’s mother, Siriporn Pimsen, and father, Yutthaya Pimsen, from Thailand, and her grandmother, Lamai Chunoumpai, from New York, plan to attend the ceremony to celebrate her achievements.