Student NEWS
Student Wins IL-ITE Graduate Student Scholarship By David Staudacher, UIC
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One-of-a-Kind Student Awarded One-of-a-Kind Scholarship By David Staudacher, UIC
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nly one student is awarded the 2018 SEI Graduate Student Scholarship from the American Society of Engineers Structural Engineering Institute - Illinois Section. And that student is UIC’s Emad Norouzzadeh Tochaei, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Civil and Materials Engineering. Tochaei, received the award from the national president of ASCE during the President-Elect/ Student Scholarship Dinner on April 12 at Maggiano’s in Chicago. “I am sincerely honored to have been selected as the recipient of this prestigious award. This great achievement motivates me to work hard and maximize my potential to reach my goals,” said Tochaei. “I have been lucky to have UIC Distinguished Professor Farhad Ansari as my supervisor in my doctoral research. He is an example of excellence as a researcher, mentor, instructor, and role model.” The scholarship is presented annually to inspire and encourage structural students whose academic and research performance display a prominent level of excellence and merit. The
candidates are evaluated based on academic performance, work experience, involvement in community, extracurricular activities, education plans and career goals. The scholarship is provided to one undergraduate and one graduate student in the amount of $1,000 each. Tochaei works under the direction of Farhad Ansari, Christopher B. and Susan S. Burke Professor of Civil Engineering, UIC Distinguished Professor and Associate Vice Chancellor for Research, in the Structural Dynamics and Monitoring Laboratory. Tochaei’s research is focused on seismic behavior of cable-stayed bridges considering soil-structure interaction. He also is involved in several projects in order to develop structural health monitoring systems for bridges. “Emad hit the ground running from the moment he arrived to my laboratory back in September 2016,” said Ansari. “In his first semester, Emad served as a teaching assistant for the course, entitled as, Earthquake Resistant Design for Structural Steel 10
Systems, which is an advanced graduate level course in our department. He also was able to resolve many of the machine/software interface issues we had faced in the previous experiments.” “Emad’s background commensurate with my current work, which involves structural health monitoring and seismic performance of structures,” he added. “He is working on evaluation of the performance of cable-stayed bridges considering soil-structure interaction. For this, he developed a comprehensive numerical and experimental model of a scaled cable-stayed bridge. The results of his research will help structural engineers to understand the performance of different structures and infrastructures better.” Tochaei has five publications at highly prestigious journals and international conferences. Additionally, he mentors several visiting scholars and helps them with research projects. Learn more about the research in the Structural Health Monitoring lab at http://cme.uic.edu/ structural-health-monitoring.
amin Shabanpour, a Ph.D. candidate in CME, won the IL-ITE Graduate Student Scholarship from the Institute of Transportation Engineers Illinois Section. Shabanpour, who serves as UIC’s ITE chapter vice president, received the award during the ITE Illinois Section Annual Banquet on Jan. 19 at The Berghoff in Chicago. “I feel extremely honored for receiving this award, which is an important impetus for me to continue my research with more efforts,” said Shabanpour. “I also feel proud that this is the second year in a row that UIC Transportation students are winning this scholarship. We started our ITE-UIC chapter last year, and, since then, our students have brought home many regional and statewide awards in transportation. I feel proud to be part of this striving team. I also appreciate Professor and CME Department Head Kouros Mohammadian’s dedication in supervising me in my doctoral research.”
“I feel extremely honored for receiving this award, which is an important impetus for me to continue my research
Ramin Shabanpour, a Ph.D. candidate in CME, won the IL-ITE Graduate Student Scholarship from the Institute of Transportation Engineers Illinois Section. Shabanpour, who serves as UIC’s ITE chapter vice president received the award during the ITE Illinois Section Annual Banquet at The Berghoff in Chicago. Photo courtesy of Ramin Shabanpour
with more efforts.” Shabanpour is working under the direction of Mohammadian. His research is focused on the analysis of adoption behavior of smart mobility technologies with an emphasis on emerging autonomous vehicles, and their potential implications for people’s travel behavior. He is a prolific student, which is evident by the number of awards and scholarships he has earned. Throughout the past two years, he received several awards and scholarships including the full-tuition scholarship for attending the discrete choice analysis summer course at MIT, Institute for Environmental Science and Policy’s Doctoral Fellowship, Illinois ASCE Transportation & Development Institute Scholarship, Christopher and Susan Burke Civil Engineering Scholarship, David Boyce Graduate Scholarship, George Krambles Transportation Award, Illinois Asphalt Pavement Association scholarship, and the UIC Chancellor’s Student Service and Leadership Award. The IL-ITE scholarship is presented annually to honor and encourage transportation students whose academic achievements and research display a high level of excellence and distinction. The scholarship is provided to one undergraduate and one graduate student in the amount of $2,000 each. The candidates are evaluated on the basis of academic performance, education plans, career goals, activities, and record of
leadership. Last year, UIC students made their debut by beating out students from universities throughout Illinois to capture three scholarships. Nabin Kafle took home the Graduate Scholarship Award, Nima Golshani received the Best Student Paper Award and Yousef Dana nabbed the Undergraduate Scholarship Award. “I think our chapter is doing great, and hope next year we again take all the scholarships,” said Shabanpour. UIC students, and faculty advisor Professor Bo Zou, relaunched the ITE-UIC chapter to make a longterm contribution to the transportation profession. Its main goal is to inform undergraduate students about transportation engineering profession and to encourage them to take an active role in promoting the ideals of the Institute of Transportation Engineers and serving to the community. The students organize several seminars and workshops, and invite industry representatives to share their work experiences and potential job opportunities. Learn more about ITE-UIC chapter, scholarships in the field of transportation, and events at http://ite. org.uic.edu. 11