Description:

Transportation is undergoing a period of transformative investment that has the potential to modernize our infrastructure and make transportation systems more resilient, safer, and equitable. Throughout history, how we think about and use transportation as it exists today has been shaped by innovative women leaders.

On International Women’s Day and recognizing this opportunity in transportation, as well as the USDOT strategic goals and priorities of Climate and Sustainability and infrastructure Durability, we wanted to take the time to highlight some of these women leaders in transportation research here at CAIT and their recent work. In this seminar, you will hear from researchers at the University at Buffalo and Rutgers who will share their work ranging from water quality and sustainability to building resilient communities and fire engineering.

About the Presenters:

Dr. Nicole Fahrenfeld, Associate Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Rutgers University

• Dr Fahrenfeld’s research interests lie at the interface of environmental chemistry and environmental microbiology to promote water quality and sustainability, with applications in natural, agricultural, and engineered systems. Previous research projects include remediation of oil and explosives contaminated aquifer sediments, microbial source tracking in mixed land use watersheds, and antibiotic resistance in agricultural soils.

Dr. Negar Elhami-Khorasani, Associate Professor of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, University at Buffalo

• Dr. Elhami-Khorasani’s main area of research is investigating performance of the built environment under extreme loading and multi-hazard scenarios, especially fire, fire following earthquake, and wildfires. Negar is a member of several committees, including the ASCE Fire Protection Committee, the International Federation for Structural Concrete (fib) Task Group on Fire Design of Concrete Structures, and the International Association for Fire Safety Science Large Outdoor Fires and the Built Environment working groups.

Dr. Adriana Trias, Assistant Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Rowan University

• Dr. Trias has expertise in bridge structural evaluation through the application of non-destructive and remote sensors. Her research focuses on the structural evaluation and condition assessment of bridges through the processing and analysis of point cloud data collected on operating bridges. Her research also investigates methods to accelerate the data required to perform long-term bridge performance analysis.

Learning Objectives:

1. Celebrate International Women’s Day and women in transportation research.
2. Learn about ongoing projects being led by women researchers at CAIT.
3. Discuss latest research efforts making our transportation systems more resilient and sustainable.

Intended Audience:

Engineers and administrators

Credits:

1 PDH