Clemson students wins $100K

A Clemson student from Long Island, New York who receives a master’s degree Friday says she’ll pay off her student loans and establish a scholarship with the $100 thousand she won for developing manufacturing software. Valerie Pezzullo, 24 years old, won first place in the MTConnect Challenge 2 for an application that detects vibrations in metal-cutting machines so that corrections can be made before parts are damaged The application is expected to help manufacturers that rely on computer-controlled CNC machines to make highly-precise parts for a variety of industries, ranging from automotive to aerospace.