Graduate School Newsblog

Tag: Geological Engineering

Three Students Awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

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Three students from Michigan Tech received fellowships from the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF-GRFP), one of the oldest and most prestigious programs in the nation. In addition, one student received Honorable Mention in the national program.

Rose Turner, Gabriela Shirkey and Helena Keller were named GRFP Fellows while Katelyn Kring received Honorable Mention.

Turner, from Berkley, Michigan, graduated from Michigan Tech in December with a bachelor’s in environmental engineering. She was the student speaker for Fall Commencement and is planning to pursue graduate studies in Environmental Engineering here at Michigan Tech

Katelyn Kring, from Portage, MI, graduated from Michigan Tech in December and is continuing as a first-year master’s student in Tech’s Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences.

Shirkey, from Manitou Beach, Michigan, graduated from Michigan Tech in the Fall of 2013 in scientific and technical communications  and is currently studying geography at Michigan State University.

Keller, from Elk River Minnesota, graduated from Tech in Spring 2014 with a degree in Chemistry. She is currently studying macromolecular, supramolecular and nanochemistry at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

THE NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited US institutions.

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Dean’s Award for Outstanding Scholar Award – Fall 2018 Recipients

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Congratulations! Outstanding Scholar Award Fall 2018 Recipients

Gina Roose (Accounting MS)
Shuaidong Zhao (Civil and Environmental Engineering PhD)
Priscilla Addison(Geological Engineering PhD)
Sampath Kumar Reddy Boyapally (Mechanical Engineering MS)
Rahul Jitendra Thakkar (Mechanical Engineering MS)
Nikhil Appasaheb Shinde(Mechanical Engineering MS)
Mitchel Timm (Mechanical Engineering MS)
Xinyu Ye (Environmental Engineering PhD)
Janarjan Bhandari (Atmospheric Science PhD)
Mingxi Fang (Chemistry PhD)
John Barnett (Environmental and Energy Policy PhD)
Dolendra Karki (Physics PhD)

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Doctoral Finishing Fellowship Fall 2018 Recipient – Priscilla Addison

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Priscilla Addison
Geological Engineering

My interest in engineering started in childish defiance of wanting to prove to majority of the people I came across that girls can be engineers too, and pretty great ones at that! But thankfully it ended up being something I enjoyed immensely. My personality is more logical than emotional, so in school I found myself gravitating towards the Math and Physics subjects because of the structure in them. I enjoy that these subjects can help give the breakdown of why and how most things work. During my undergrad, I majored in civil engineering but got more interested in the geotecthnical/geological aspect of the discipline because of the encompassing nature of this subfield. I like the fact that it puts me in the heart of basically everything of the built environment since geological engineering deals with virtually everything that touches the earth! In my current role as a PhD candidate, I have been developing predictive models to isolate locations in the western US that are vulnerable to debris flows occurrences after wildfires. A recent model has been able to predict 8 out of 10 of these disastrous locations, which is a great improvement on the 4 out of 10 that an earlier model was predicting a couple years ago. This makes me so happy because it is a great step towards mitigating/ preventing the devastations usually associated with these events.

Throughout my academic career, I have been so lucky to have met so many wonderful people, especially my advisor, Dr. Oommen, who has been nothing short of supportive through all the highs and lows of this wringer of a grad school journey. He truly is amazing! I am also very thankful to the Graduate School for this award of Finishing Fellowship which is making it possible for me to fully concentrate on writing my dissertation and defending it without worrying about finances anymore. Medaase— this means “thank you” in my native language, Twi.

 

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Nominee for 2018 CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award: Lauren Schaefer

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Lauren Schaefer
Geological Engineering

Lauren Schaefer 2018Lauren N. Schaefer received both an MSc in Geology (International Geological Masters in Volcanology and Geotechniques, 2012) and a PhD in Geological Engineering as a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellow (2016) at Michigan Tech under the supervision of Dr. Thomas Oommen. Her dissertation investigated the potential for large-scale debris avalanches at Pacaya Volcano in Guatemala to optimize future monitoring and mitigation efforts. A combination of experimental rock mechanics, field investigations, remote sensing, and numerical modeling not only detected, but revealed the nature and mechanics of the largest landslide surge witnessed in a single event at a volcano. Her dissertation provided rare insight into precursory deformation prior to a potential future catastrophic collapse at an active volcano. Such an event was witnessed at Mount St. Helens in 1980, and is known to have occurred at over 400 volcanoes worldwide.

Currently, Lauren is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, where she continues to research landslide and volcanic hazards.

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Nominees for 2018 CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award

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The Graduate School would like to congratulate and recognize Lauren Schaefer and Erin Pischke for being nominated for the Council of Graduate Schools / ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Awards, the nation’s most prestigious honors for doctoral dissertations.

Two awards are given annually in two different broad areas (mathematics, physical sciences and engineering; and social sciences; and the biological sciences; and humanities and fine arts). The winners of the awards will be announced during the Fall 2018 Semester.

The 2018 fields of competition are:

Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering

Mathematics and Social Sciences

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Doctoral Finishing Fellowships Fall 2016 Recipients

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The Graduate School is pleased to announce the awarding of Finishing Fellowships for doctoral candidates. Fellowships are available through the generosity of alumni and friends of the University. They are intended to recognize outstanding PhD candidates who are in need of financial support to finish their degrees.

(listed by nominating department)

Fall 2016 Recipients

Electrical Engineering
Arash Hosseinzadeh
Seyedmehdi Sadatgoltabarestani

Engineering Physics
Bishnu Tiwari

Geological Engineering
Jordan Mertes

Geophysics
Federica Lanza

Materials Science and Engineering
Cameron McNamara
Shan Zhao

Physics
Hugo Alberto Ayala Solares
Gaoxue Wang

Rhetoric, Theory and Culture
Lindsay Hingst

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US News Ranks Michigan Tech PhD Programs in Engineering, Science

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More of Michigan Tech’s PhD level engineering and science programs than ever made US News & World Report’s annual graduate school rankings, released today. The rankings reflect momentum generated by Michigan Tech’s focus on graduate education and research, said Provost Max Seel. The Graduate School has more than doubled its enrollment since 2005.

Michigan Tech’s PhD engineering programs earned an overall ranking of 90th, tied with George Washington University, Rochester Institute of Technology and Mississippi State University. Biomedical engineering at Tech showed up in the rankings for the first time, placing 71st.

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WWF funding and fellowship opportunities

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The Luc Hoffmann Institute pursues synthesis ideas that will deliver cutting edge results with a clear pathway to application for decision makers and civil society practitioners in WWF’s key focus areas.  WWF focus areas can be broken into goals focused onpriority places and priority species, and goals focused on reducing human impact, or the human footprint.  Many of these goals receive additional focus through WWF’s Global Initiatives.

Our next call for full proposals is JANUARY 5th, 2014.  For this call, we are accepting proposal ideas across the full suite of WWF focus areas, with a particular focus on synthesis proposals relevant to the goals of WWF Global Initiatives, as well as proposals that explore trade-offs and consequences of alternative social, economic, and ecological futures in the greater Yangtze River area.

To allow enough time to make the next proposal deadline, we recommend that you send us your proposal ideas no later than December 1st, 2013.

If you have any questions related to our process, or in submitting your idea, please contact Emilie Cavallo at ecavallo@wwfint.org.

Proposal submission is a two-step process.

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