CEGE students embark on a research-filled summer
As participants in the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF), CEGE students will spend their summer break conducting research that addresses the quality of the air we breathe in the indoor environment, the structural health of the bridges we drive over and the corrosive degradation of the materials used to construct the planes we fly in.
Another Fellow will investigate how Ohio invests it financial resources in energy projects while another student will test filtration methods that could help bring clean, drinkable water to a portion of the world population without access to a safe water supply.
Now in its third year, the SURF program offers students an opportunity to conduct research in collaboration with a CEGE faculty member for 10 weeks during the summer semester. Students work the equivalent of 35 hours a week, prepare reports on their research data, and present their research findings to faculty and peers.
Natalie Hull, assistant professor of environmental engineering and chair of the department's undergraduate research committee, emphasized the variety of proposals submitted to the program as well as the changing face of the student group that makes up this year's Fellows.
"In addition to being highly interdisciplinary, our recipients this year are highly diverse, including several underrepresented minorities in CEGE," she said.
Meet the 2022 CEGE Summer Undergradute Research Fellows:
Troye Sas-Wright
Research Advisor: Dr. Jordan Clark
Alexandria Summers
Research Advisor: Dr. Halil Sezen
Noah Morris
Research Advisor: Daniel Gingerich
Katie Vatke
Research Advisor: Dr. Michael Hagenberger
Mariam Wahed
Research Advisor: Dr. Karen Dannemiller
Dr. Hull noted that the inclusive, and interdisciplinary nature of the Fellows' research initiatives included a mixture of experimental and computational research. "This year’s CEGE SURF cohort reflects the cutting edge of the professionally changing landscape of CEGE," she said.
For Professor of Structural Engineering Halil Sezen, the summer Fellowship is an opportunity to collaborate with a new undergraduate researcher and expand upon research on the progressive collapse of structures that he conducted with 2021 Fellow Mazin Al-Mahrouqi.
"Alex (Summers) has been analyzing a very large data set collected during the field testing of a reinforced concrete building last year. We used the LiDAR data to better understand the structural performance when the columns were physically removed from the structure. Alex will expand this research for the assessment of bridge structures," he said.