Graduate Student of the Month

VanNierop’s research focuses on addressing additional wind effects on high rise structures to better optimize their design. Specifically, he is looking at wind effects not addressed in the 7-22 ASCE Design standard to see how they affect the overall base shear of a high-rise structure. VanNierop is from Wentzville, Missouri, and his hobbies include playing guitar, listening to music and spending time with friends. His favorite food is chicken alfredo, and his top bucket list items are to visit Ireland and Scotland, learn a new language and work at a firm within the aeronautics/aerospace field.

Soni’s research focuses on soil water dynamics across varying cropping systems, specifically, examining how cropping systems and management practices influence the movement, storage and use of water in agricultural soils. Soni is from the Philippines, and his hobbies include picking up new languages, traveling, getting lost in good books and bringing old tech back to life. His favorite food is pasta (in many forms), and his top bucket list item is to road trip his way through all 50 states, snapping a picture at every welcome sign along the way.

Thomason’s research focuses on the remediation of PFAS-contaminated water using photocatalysis. Thomason is from Kansas, and his hobbies include solving puzzles, taking things apart and putting them back together, gardening and bonsai, playing guitar and bass, and winemaking. His favorite foods are Mexican, Italian and tomatoes, and his top bucket list item is to get married and raise a family.

Gara’s research focuses on limestone calcined clay cement, an emerging low-carbon alternative to Portland cement. He is studying the concrete’s fresh and hardened properties, including strength development, freeze-thaw resistance and its interactions with various chemical admixtures, particularly for paving applications. Gara is from Tunisia, and his hobbies include soccer, the gym, markets and travel. His favorite food is shakshouka, and his top bucket list item is to go cage-free shark diving in Hawaii.

Sarma’s research lies at the intersection of explainable AI and neuro-symbolic methods, with a focus on integrating these approaches into computer vision systems. She is particularly interested in uncovering the reasoning processes of deep models by analyzing hidden neuron activations and their emergent concepts to improve the interpretability and trustworthiness of deep models. Sarma is from Bangladesh, and her hobbies include traveling and cooking. Her favorite food is chicken biriyani, and her bucket list includes presenting a paper at a top conference, getting a job in a research and innovation role, going paragliding, visiting Switzerland and seeing a World Cup match.

Hosseini’s research focuses on epidemic modeling, specifically, working on predictive models to forecast the risk of vector-borne diseases like West Nile Virus and dengue. Hosseini is from Iran, and his hobbies include walking, fishing and cooking. His favorite food is a hamburger, and his bucket list includes a trip to Niagara Falls, visiting the White House and successfully flying a kite.

Ghafariasl’s research focuses on developing AI-based models for fraud detection by fine-tuning large language models and leveraging them for early detection and continuous monitoring. His recent publications include data-driven modeling for skin and breast cancer detection, as well as surrogate modeling in the energy sector, with an emphasis on improving accuracy, efficiency, and decision-making. Ghafariasl is from Azerbaijan, located in northwest Iran, and his hobbies include hiking, listening to music while driving, educational podcasts and exploring inspiring spiritual stories. His favorite food is ash reshteh, a flavorful herbed Persian noodle soup, and his top bucket list item is to create and scale his own business.

Das’ research focuses on computational fluid dynamics analysis of phosphine gas fumigation in shipping containers, utilizing simulations in grain storage to avoid the cost of real-world trial and error approaches. Das is from Bangladesh, and his hobbies include playing guitar, photography, travel and debate. His favorite food is biriyani, and his top bucket list item is to make an expedition to Annapurna mountain.