Josiah Coad received the Craig C. Brown Outstanding Senior Engineer Award during the Texas A&M University College of Engineering Student Awards virtual banquet that was held last month via Zoom. First presented in 1947, it is the most prestigious award bestowed on graduating engineering students who demonstrate outstanding achievement, leadership and character.
Originally from Idaho, Coad was drawn to Texas A&M because both of his parents are former students. He began his college career at Texas A&M at Galveston, where he developed a strong interest in computer science after completing a project where he was tasked with building and coding an extreme weather station. After transferring to Texas A&M’s main campus in College Station, Texas, he made the decision to pursue computer science, mathematics and statistics degrees simultaneously so he could explore all of his interests.
“I like computer science because it finds applications in nearly everything,” said Coad. “Furthermore, as a tinkerer, I like that I can implement an idea quickly and see it working almost immediately. I can have the craziest idea and there’s no resource or financial limits to hold me back from trying it out.”
During his time at Texas A&M, he has accomplished a lot, both inside the classroom and out, while maintaining a near 4.0 GPA. Driven by his passion for data science and education, Coad founded the TAMU Datathon, which is considered to be the first data science hackathon of its kind. Since its inception two years ago, more than 3,500 students from 120 universities around the world have participated in it.
He has also had internships with Facebook, Microsoft, the Central Intelligence Agency and robotics start-up company, Continuous Composite. It was during this time that he received an international patent for the foundational path planning code that he wrote for a Continuous Composite manufacturing robot.
Other honors and distinctions include being named Texas A&M’s most influential student in 2016, and winning first place in the L.A. Bike Share Data Science Competition, Walmart Computer Vision Competition and Oxford Hackathon. He is also a member of the Engineering Honors and University Honors programs.
Coad will graduate this May. In the future, he hopes to become a professor and do research in the areas of robotics and reinforcement learning. Through his work he hopes to develop educational programs to inspire talented students from underrepresented backgrounds to get involved with STEM in an effort to pass forward what was done for him.
“I'm very thankful and honored by this award because I greatly respect the donors, Mr. and Mrs. Brown, and the review committee that selected me for it,” said Coad. “In the process of applying for this award, I have had the opportunity to reflect on my time at Texas A&M and the amazing faculty and professors that have made my wildest dreams become possible, and I am filled with gratitude. Texas A&M has truly lived up to its values during my time here and I am inspired to live out these values myself going forward.”