Tuscaloosa, Ala. – Three graduate students in The University of Alabama department of civil, construction and environmental engineering were awarded an inaugural grant that will pair each with a funded undergraduate research assistant.
Shahrooz Amidi, Phillip Grammar and Stephanie Wood were the first recipients of the department’s Resilient Infrastructure and Sustainable Environment, RISE, Doctoral Research Enhancement Grant Program. Grammar and Wood both received their bachelor’s degrees from the UA College of Engineering.
Amidi is being advised by Dr. Jialai Wang, an associate professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering, and will study the long-term durability and environmental-assisted debond between ultra-high performance concrete overlay and concrete substrate. Dr. Sriram Aaleti, an assistant professor in the department, will also provide guidance for Amidi’s research effort.
Grammar is studying under the direction of Dr. Mark Elliott, an assistant professor in the department, and will conduct an evaluation of enteroccoci as an indicator of subsurface contamination in deep groundwater wells in rural Alabama.
Wood is conducting a microscopic evaluation of autoclaved concrete prisms to identify cause of expansion, and she is being supervised by Dr. Eric Giannini, an assistant professor in the department.
RISE Doctoral Research Enhancement Grants Program is intended to provide doctoral students who are active in their dissertation research an opportunity to supervise/mentor an undergraduate research assistant. Up to four RISE Grants are awarded to qualified doctoral students each year. Each award will be for a maximum 12 months with no extensions and have a budget of up to $7,000.
The undergraduate research assistant will present work at next year’s university-wide undergraduate research symposium.