Cook, Schwabl receive 2026 Ralph S. Quatrano Prize

Ben Cook and Suzy Schwabl honored for outstanding achievements

Channing Suhl 04.29.2026

Pictured, left to right: Cook and Schwabl

Ben Cook and Suzy Schwabl, students in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, have been chosen to receive the 2026 Ralph S. Quatrano Prize, given in honor of the late Ralph S. Quatrano, former dean of Engineering and former chair of the Department of Biology at WashU.

Established through a generous donation by Katherine Day Reinleitner, the prize is sponsored by The Mindlin Foundation, which typically presents two prizes annually, one in Engineering and one in biology, both honoring Quatrano’s exemplary leadership as Engineering dean and his important work as a researcher in biology.

This year, the Quatrano Prize was awarded to two Engineering students as well as Matthew Pottinger, who will earn a bachelor’s degree in biology.

Cook, a St. Louis native who will earn a bachelor’s degree in electrical & systems engineering from the McKelvey School of Engineering May 15, founded WashU Satellite, the university's only space mission engineering team. In its inaugural year, Cook led the 60-person, interdisciplinary group building research balloons and satellites, raising $200,000 and establishing collaborations across the university.

His honors include the Langsdorf Scholarship in 2022 and the McKelvey Build Fellowship in 2024. He participated in electrical engineering research in the WashU Stream Based Supercomputing Lab in 2024.

Cook’s industry experience includes internships in electrical engineering at Intramotev and hardware engineering at MARSfarm. He is now building a programmable lab equipment company to accelerate the path from research to commercial production.

Schwabl, a native of Cleveland, will earn a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering May 15 and a master’s in aerospace engineering in December 2026.

As president of WashU Racing, the school’s Formula SAE (FSAE) team, Schwabl led a team of more than 80 people through the design, build and testing phases of an FSAE car. Her responsibilities included managing a budget of $125,000 to accomplish design goals and execute necessary system testing and overseeing design reviews for each system.

Her industry experience includes internships in technical sales and systems verification and validation at Eaton Corp.

Schwabl will work as a graduate engineer with the SpaceX Starlink team in Redmond, Wash., this summer before returning to WashU to earn a master’s next fall.