Shahryar Ahmad, Ph.D. student, won the "Best Use of Data" award during the 2020 NASA Space Apps 48HrHackathon. Ahmad led the team C-attleFootprint, which developed an interactive cloud-based tool to track, assess and estimate greenhouse gas emissions, with the goal of both helping scientists map carbon sources and better informing policy makers’ future decisions.

Assistant professor Paolo Calvi was one of eight recipients of an International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering 2020 Outstanding Paper Award. In collaboration with researchers in Italy, Calvi co-authored a paper that details the collapse of a portion of the Morandi Bridge, which killed more than 40 people in 2018. The researchers investigated the history of the bridge leading up to the tragic event and discussed inadequacies of the structure and potential reasons for the collapse. Learn more. 

Geotechnical Ph.D. students Mertcan Geyin and Ryan Rasanen won first and second place, respectively, in ASCE's International Geo-Poster Competition, held in conjunction with Geo-Congress 2020 in Minneapolis, MN. Geyin and Rasanen are advised by assistant professor Brett Maurer. Geyin's research was titled "A pragmatic framework for cost-benefit analysis of liquefaction mitigation" and Rasanen's research was titled "Probabilistic earthquake source location and magnitude via inverse-analysis of liquefaction evidence." Image: Geyin, far right, and Rasanen, second from right, receive awards.

Professor Faisal Hossain received the prestigious 2020 American Geophysical Union International Award, which recognizes a scientist who has made outstanding contributions to furthering Earth and space sciences and who has used science to help benefit society in developing nations. Hossain received the award for his role in improving access to water resource information in the developing world by introducing irrigation advisory and flood forecasting systems based on satellite and weather model data. Learn more.

Cole Kopca, Ph.D. student, received a Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program (DDETFP) fellowship. This program advances the transportation workforce by helping to attract the nation’s brightest minds to the field of transportation, encouraging future transportation professionals to seek advanced degrees, and helping to retain top talent in the U.S. transportation industry.

Professor Julian Marshall and former research scientist Christopher Tessum’s research on the ethnic disparities in exposure to air pollution was featured in an NPR article, which was selected as one of the “Top 10 stories of 2019” by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers found that Black and Hispanic Americans bear a disproportionate burden from air pollution generated mainly by non-Hispanic white Americans. Learn more.

Master’s student Dan McCabe was honored as the 2020 C2SMART Outstanding Student of the Year. C2SMART, a USDOT Tier 1 University Transportation Center led by New York University, supports research in urban transportation across a consortium of universities including UW. McCabe was selected based on academic performance, leadership, and his research on transit electrification and automated ride-hailing services.

Bao Nguyen Quoc, Ph.D. student, is the recipient of the Charles V. Tom and Jean C. Gibbs Endowed Presidential Fellowship, which supports his research developing methods of tracking SARS-Cov-2 virus in local municipal sewer systems to predict the spread of COVID-19, particularly in low resource areas where wide-spread public testing is not readily available.

Assistant professor Jessica Ray was one of Chemical & Engineering News’s “Talented 12” honorees for 2020 for her work to use chemistry to help solve water shortages. Through her research, Ray is working to usher in a paradigm shift for wastewater, which has the potential to alleviate drinking water shortages around the world. She envisions a circular approach to the wastewater lifecycle that entails both resource recovery and recycling of water. Learn more.

Sam Ricord, a Ph.D student in transportation engineering, is the recipient of the 2020 Student of the Year Award for the Center for Safety Equity in Transportation (CSET) center. The award is given each year to one outstanding student from the partner universities of University of Washington, University of Alaska Fairbanks, University of Hawaii and University of Idaho.

Professor Joe Wartman and graduate student Will Pollock received a silver EXCEL Award from Association Media & Publishing for a magazine article they co-wrote on geologic hazard risks to Syrian and other refugees. Their article was titled “No Place to Flee” and was published in the American Geophysical Union’s journal Eos in November 2019. Learn more.

Shuyi Yin, a Ph.D. student in Transportation Engineering Group, received the Best Paper Award from the 2020 IEEE International Smart Cities conference. The award was presented to the top three papers out of 85+ accepted in the broad array of current and future Smart Cities applications. Yin’s paper discusses graph learning in transportation networks.

The project titled “Curbside Parking Monitoring and Management using Edge Computing Technology” which is developed by the research team consisted of six STAR Lab students (Ziyuan Pu, Shuyi Yin, Ruimin Ke, Ian Nisbet, Luyang Gong and Chenxi Liu) won the Mobility Track Award of the first annual MetroLab Network Student Cup. The MetroLab Network Student Cup highlighted transformative student projects across the country which leverage innovative applications of technology to bridge the gap between academic research and civic issues.

A software technology company originally founded by CEE faculty and students, HeadLight (formerly Pavia Systems) was recognized by an award bestowed by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) to the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development. AASHTO’s annual Sweet Sixteen Award was presented to the state transportation department for its work to implement HeadLight’s e-construction inspection technology, which replaces the paper-based method that field inspectors previously used. Information, pictures and videos can be taken in real-time through a cloud-based mobile application, which significantly improves the efficiency of field inspectors and project teams, allowing for increased productivity without increasing work hours. The CEO of HeadLight, George White, is a former CEE research engineer and CEE faculty member Julian Yamaura also played a major role in the development of the new technology.