Four civil engineering graduate students have received 2023 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships, a prestigious award that recognizes and supports outstanding students in a wide variety of science-related disciplines. In total this year, CU Boulder had 43 winners, including 28 from the College of Engineering and Applied Science.
Fellows receive a three-year annual stipend of $37,000 and full coverage of tuition, fees and insurance, along with opportunities for international research and professional development that span five years.
Kaitlyn Bishay
Civil Engineering
Pursuing a PhD
Advisor: Ben Livneh
Lab: Water and Climate Research Group
The overarching goal of my research is to quantify the impact of warming temperatures on high-mountain snowpack and downstream effects on water supplies. Previous research acknowledges that different model types vary in strengths and weaknesses; therefore, my research will employ an ensemble of models underscored by the principle that no single model is correct, but that there is wisdom across a range of varied models given their unique structures, assumptions, etc. My project will focus on two categories of hydrologic models: statistical models, which rely upon relationships between basin characteristics and streamflow, and physical models, which seek to represent physics-based fluxes of water through the hydrologic cycle in space and time. By quantifying the effect of seasonal warming on vital water resources, this work will provide scientists with an understanding of future Colorado River Basin flows, as well as insights for other snow-dominated regions.
Rachel Johnson
Civil Engineering
Pursuing a PhD
Advisor: Ute Herzfeld
My research over the next several years will involve using numerical modeling of surging and deformation of polythermal glaciers. I will furthermore investigate the interglacial hydrological response to such surging events. My research will also aim to incorporate a machine learning framework, specifically one involving a physically-informed neural network, to replicate portions of the glacial model.
Anna Pauls
Civil Engineering
Pursuing a PhD
Advisor: John Crimaldi
My research sets out to parameterize sniffing as a prototypical active sensing modality to enable future work for bio-inspired chemical sensors by means of numerical modeling and physical experiments. In doing so, naris morphology and sniff forcing must be quantified to understand the dynamics and structure of the interior and exterior sniffing flows, and by extension, entrainment and dispersion of local odors en route to the olfactory epithelium. This will set the groundwork for future research to develop bio-inspired search algorithms and implement active sensing into technology.
Ava Spangler
Civil Engineering
Pursuing a PhD
Advisor: Joseph Kasprzyk
Lab: Kasprzyk Research Group
My research will involve studying hydroclimatology, in particular, the increase in wildfire frequency and severity which creates many unknowns around post-fire conditions. As a result of these unknowns, water managers lack the information needed to anticipate, mitigate and recover from uncertain wildfire scenarios and support these decisions using simulation models. Some of these intervention strategies may include flushing pipes to clear contaminated water, improving the current pipe network to be more disaster resistant or having teams ready to clear debris and replace damaged network parts. Currently, water managers in wildfire-prone districts struggle to decide which sets of interventions to implement, as available information is constantly evolving. Decisionmakers do not know which forecasted wildfire scenario might occur, and as such, cannot know the relative importance of each recovery or prevention objective. I plan to develop decision making under a deep uncertainty framework to allow water resource managers to make informed choices around preparing for and recovering from wildfire disasters.