Three posters presented by University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez PREM students during the TMS Annual Meeting held in New Orleans in March 2008 received First Prizes during the poster competition. The corresponding departmental affiliation of the students reflects the inherent interdisciplinary nature that has fostered this PREM project.

Lilia Olaya, a Mechanical Engineering MS student received the First Prize in the graduate category of the Light Metals Division of TMS. Lilia is the very first UPRM graduate student to receive this award in this international competition. The high temperature Ultima III x-ray diffractometer that permitted this research was acquired with NSF MRI award CBET 0619349 led by participating PREM faculty.

Carla Príncipe (Civil Engineering, second from the left), Maxuel Cruz (Mechanical Engineering, first from the left) and Abraham Rodríguez (Chemical Engineering, third from the left) received the First Prize in the undergraduate category of the Structural Materials Division of TMS. The poster was titled "Characterization of Al-Cu Alloys Reinforced with Dodecaborides." PREM graduate student Lilia Olaya also assisted in this project.

Alexandra Cintrón (Industrial Engineering, second from the left), Lizmar Príncipe and José González (Mechanical Engineering, first and third from the left, respectively) received the First Prize in the undergraduate category of the Extraction and Processing Division of TMS. Their poster was titled: "Design of Experiment: Effect of Boron in Al-Si Composites under Centrifugal and Gravity Casting Conditions." The UPRM delegation to TMS was the largest one (16 students) representing all US Material Advantage Chapters. The group participated in the "Hands On New Orleans Service Project" as volunteers in the Mary D. Coghill Elementary School, located in the city's 9th Ward. They constructed picnic tables and trash can holders, installed playground equipment and painted ground murals including sidewalk games. In addition to PREM, kind donations by BP, Raytheon, Johnson & Johnson and Gerber to the UPRM Material Advantage student chapter made possible this significant student delegation from Mayagüez.