Graduate Student of the Month

Foster’s research focus is on ASCE 7-22 tornado provisions, specifically, reviewing the impacts from the addition of tornado design being added to ASCE 7-22. He is from Rossville, Kansas, and his hobbies include woodworking, spending time with family and watching sporting events. His favorite food is his mom’s lasagna, and his bucket list includes a trip to Europe to see some of the ancient Greek and Roman structures.

Weiss’ research focuses on fermentation, specifically creating new spirit flavor compounds associated with different types of yeast. He is from Bonsall, California, and his favorite hobby is exploring with his dog. His favorite food is tacos, and his bucket list item is to travel to every continent.

Gutierrez’s current research explores the benefits of using microorganisms and their bioproducts for bioremediation and increasing water capacity while alleviating environmental concerns, especially water scarcity. He is from Mexico, and his hobbies include traveling to new places and working on a genealogical tree. His favorite type of food is Japanese, and his bucket list includes trips to see Israel and its landmarks, as well as Italy and Spain.

Wu’s research is investigating the optimum cement and fly ash content for mixing with full-depth reclamation materials from existing asphalt concrete pavements while mechanistically designing the new asphalt pavement structure for an asphalt concrete overlay on a stabilized full-depth reclamation base layer. Wu is from Shangdong, China, and his hobbies include computer programming, video editing and pavement materials testing. His favorite food is Chinese dumplings, and his bucket list includes constructing a mile-long city driveway named after him and made with 100% recycled materials.

Das’ research focuses on analyzing stochastic hybrid systems for desired properties like safety, stability, reachability and liveliness. He develops and implements algorithms for formal verification of hybrid systems and analyzes the complexity of these algorithms. Das is from India, and his hobbies include music, football, badminton and swimming. His favorite foods are biryani and hilsa fish, and his bucket list includes trips to see Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Canyon and the Aurora Borealis in Norway.

Chamani’s research focuses on in vitro experimental characterization of thermal injury to cells as a function of applied thermal dose, and formulation and validation of mathematical models for characterizing thermal injury. He is from Iran, and his favorite hobby is running with his dog. Chamani’s favorite food is steak, and his bucket list items is to go skydiving.

Yang’s research area is utilizing cellulosic biomass on biochemical and thermochemical platform for biofuel products. For the biochemical application, his study aimed to improve the processes of converting biomass into bioethanol for industry to adopt. Making fuel pellets with ultrasonic consolidation system is the research related to thermochemical application. Yang is from Nanjing, China, and his hobbies include bicycle racing and watching sports. His favorite foods are chocolate cookies and donuts, and his bucket list items are to go to a stage of the Tour de France, attend a Super Bowl and build his dream bike.

Elsayed’s research focuses on understanding the phosphine gas behavior in bulk-stored grain. He develops Computational Fluid Dynamics Models along with Fluid-Structure-Interaction (FSI) Models that predict the phosphine motion inside bunkers affected by diffusion, convection currents and tarpaulin billowing induced by external wind forces. He is from Egypt, and his hobbies include walking, swimming and hiking. His favorite food is cheesecake and his bucket list item is to raise his children to be good people.