Graduate Student of the Month
The Carl R. Ice College of Engineering recognizes one outstanding graduate student from each department during the academic year. This program was established to enhance graduate student recognition and development. Students are nominated each month by their department heads.
December 2022 recognitions
Peirce’s research focus is understanding the engineering behind shape, wind design, lateral system and constructability of mega-tall structures, such as the tallest building in the world: the Burj Khalifa. He is from Hutchinson, Kansas, and his hobbies include basketball, snowboarding, hiking, climbing and exploring. His favorite food is fresh seafood, and his bucket list includes skydiving from the highest altitude possible.
Rawat is currently working on developing a statistical model and comparing it with the process-based (DSSAT) model to assess the relationship between crop yield and weather variables. She is also working to analyze the impact of climate change on crop yield. Rawat is from India, and her hobbies include playing badminton, yoga, wall climbing and reading books. Her favorite foods are paneer, paratha, onion kachori, kaju katli and a lot of Indian sweets, and her bucket list includes visiting 12 Jyotirlingas in India and exploring the world.
Al Mayyahi’s research focus is on nanomanufacturing, specifically, the manufacturing of nanosized materials for air and water purification. He is from Iraq, and his favorite hobby is playing chess. Al Mayyahi’s favorite food is grilled chicken, and his bucket list includes visiting the best castles in Europe.
The objective of Gao’s research is to conduct laboratory testing to enhance the pavement material database. She used the Semi-Circular Bending (SCB) test, Texas Overlay test and IDEAL-CT test to obtain the fracture properties of representative asphalt mixes used in Kansas and New York. Gao is from China, and her favorite hobby is listening to music. Her favorite food is Chinese food.
Zalewski is interested in any and all aspects of theoretical computer science, from complexity to neural networks to knowledge representation. He is from Dayton, Ohio, and his hobbies include playing piano and creative writing. Zalewski’s favorite food is cereal.
Zhang's research area is in the cyber-physical security of smart grids. Recently, he has developed a moving target defense framework to detect data integrity attacks in power systems while considering the system's voltage stability. He has also proposed a smart inverter-based meter encoding to detect machine learning-enabled attacks. Zhang is from China, and his hobbies include fishing and hiking. His favorite food is king crab, and going skydiving tops his bucket list.
Yang’s research is focusing on 3D freeze printing (3DFP) of multi-functional aerogels, including ceramics, metals and polymer aerogels. The aerogels printed have broad applications, including bone tissue engineering and tissue growth, as well as as ultra-lightweight sound absorbers. Yang is from China, and he enjoys cooking. His favorite food is pizza, and his bucket list item is to travel to the moon.