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Parallel to my studies in transportation engineering, I am currently researching the impacts of heavy trucks on signalized intersection operations using real-time performance measures. The increased growth of freight traffic has a disproportionate impact on our already congested roadway networks. Understanding and optimizing intersections with heavy truck traffic can reduce delays and carbon emissions to save drivers time and money.

The facilities at UNL enable me to deploy video detection equipment to collect accurate real-time vehicle data. My faculty adviser, Dr. Libby Jones, has been instrumental in pushing my research into the depths of traffic behavior. She has encouraged the scope of my research and graduate studies to grow to a global scale. Next year I will continue my graduate studies and research in Brazil while participating in a dual master's degree program at the University Federal do Ceara. After graduation I will focus my energy on advancing the field of traffic engineering and mentoring young engineers in their pursuit of graduate degrees. The foundation in any engineering field is the young minds who persistently strive for excellence.

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The main focus of my research is to utilize the highly specialized structure of bacterium surface and the physiology of specified microorganisms such as Bacillus Cereus and Shewanella Putrefacien to develop an active electronic device made of Au nanoparticles deposited on the organism. The application of this work could be applied in microelectronic devices.

Nebraska Engineering offers an excellent doctoral program. I have been trained rigorously by my adviser Dr. Ravi Saraf, who has been inspiring me from different perspectives. I am particularly proud of my involvement in Dr. Saraf's research group.

For the future, I would like the opportunities to pay my parents back for raising me, as well as to share with people worldwide my unique abilities, knowledge, and talents by contributing to the community.

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My major research areas are assembly supply chain and manufacturing systems design. Supply chain management is a developing concept and one of the major research areas of industrial engineering. Manufacturing systems design has always been one of the challenging issues in IE and based on new circumstances and policies in product and market development, there will be further developments in this area by academic resources. Since there are significant research facilities such as the RFID lab in UNL's IMSE department, I decided to attend UNL for its Ph.D. program.

Some faculty members in IMSE department have similar research interests as mine, and there is a good opportunity for me to use their advice based on their numerous years of research in this area and multiple publications. Moreover, there has been a considerable increase in participation of UNL engineering research projects in industry, which will be a good source for graduate students to realize how their knowledge can be used in real world problems.

I have always been thinking of my future career as a faculty member. I hope to continue my studies in a post doctorate position. Then I will try to serve academic society as a faculty member, advising future engineering students and developing my research projects.

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I am comparing the mechanical and thermal properties of polycarbonate with different combinations of compression and aging. I conduct experiments on many instruments including DMA, DSC, Charpy Impact, ultrasonic and three-point bending.

I enjoy programming, math and instrumentation. In Engineering Mechanics, I get to do these things while performing experiments, writing FEA and machine control code, and deriving equations for data analysis. I could not do my work without the help of my adviser, Dr. Negahban. He advises me on the big picture of my research, gives me help overcoming the inherent difficulties of doing research, and motivates me to do my best and get something meaningful accomplished.

I am going to design and manufacture the next generation of robots and machines that will be used in everyday life. I will find a need, design a solution, build and program a prototype, and sell my design for mass production.

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I am involved in the design and development of tools and techniques to address research problems in the areas of bioseparations and biomaterial development. I am working on the evaluation of purified EPCR in biological assays and further immobilization of these proteins on solid supports. I am testing the proteins for their ability to inhibit clotting in in vitro assays and binding their target ligand in kinetic assays.

My undergraduate studies in chemical engineering have challenged me to apply scientific theory to real world problems, such as how to run factories more efficiently. I wanted to pursue an area of study that combines my love of biology with engineering principles. I had a wonderful undergraduate research experience with Nebraska Engineering, so I decided to expand my knowledge in chemical and biomolecular engineering at UNL.

Faculty members in our department are always available ... in both class and research. They encourage students to be independent researchers, so this environment helps students explore broad information beyond the lab experiments.

I am especially interested in protein binding, which provides advantages for the development of novel biopharmaceuticals and biomolecularly engineered surfaces. As an engineer, I would like to design biological products and processes at the molecular level.

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I am studying transportation engineering at UNL. The research project I am currently working on is assessing the risk of crash for trucks on the onset of a yellow light. The focus of this project is to enhance the safety of truck movements at high-speed signalized intersections. Having the potential to positively impact the safety of drivers is inspiring.

One of the themes of the Nebraska Transportation Center is to improve the safety of freight movement on the transportation system. Nebraska Engineering provides me the opportunity to study and research a topic I am interested in. The faculty at UNL have encouraged me to expand my knowledge base and ability to solve problems. Specifically, my adviser has expressed how the research we are working on can positively impact the transportation community. While studying transportation at UNL, I have seen the impacts of recent technologies and innovative designs on the field. The designs and technologies are potential solutions to operational and safety problems in the field of transportation. It is my career goal to assist in implementing these solutions to positively affect the movement of people and goods on our nation's road network.

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I am investigating the fate of prions in the environment. Prions are infectious proteins that cause fatal neurodegenerative diseases including 'mad cow' disease, chronic wasting disease (deer and elk), scrapie (sheep), and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (humans). Prions can be horizontally transmissible and remain infectious after years in the environment. Because soil may be a significant reservoir of prion infectivity, my current research is exploring the complex interaction between prions and soil, including studies of adsorption, degradation, and transport. This research has yielded significant insights into prion fate in the environment and could lead to new guidelines for solid waste management, water and wastewater treatment, and game and livestock management.

Prions have many fascinating and unique properties that make them both challenging and rewarding to study. The fate of prions in the environment is an interdisciplinary topic exploring an intersection of public health, ecology, biochemistry, soil science, and environmental engineering. Thus, it brings together many different researchers and many different scientific concepts. The topic also complements the numerous other research projects underway at UNL investigating the environmental and public health impacts of agricultural systems and ways to mitigate these impacts.

My adviser, Dr. Shannon Bartelt-Hunt, has served as an excellent role model and facilitated each phase of my research. She has given me the freedom to pursue new research questions and publish papers and attend conferences reporting my results. My project would not be possible without a collaboration Dr. Bartelt-Hunt developed with Dr. Jason Bartz at Creighton University, an expert on prion diseases. We are also collaborating with Dr. Kevin Van Cott in UNL's Chemical Engineering department to develop better analytical techniques for use in environmental prion studies. In addition, I would add that the environmental engineering labs at The Peter Kiewit Institute are modern and first-rate.

I hope to be in a position to help solve the many environmental problems that individuals, communities, nations, and the collective world face today. Americans are faced with increasing water and air pollution and are not currently living an environmentally sustainable lifestyle. The problems are worse internationally, as many countries lack the will, money, and expertise to improve their environmental quality or even provide their citizens with basic needs such as clean water and sanitation. I hope to help solve these problems by direct action myself, as well as by educating and leading others to confront these important issues.

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During a flood many engineering structures, such as piers, abutments and bridge deck, are subject to the risk of failure due to significant force loadings; minimizing the hydraulic action on them is a main research purpose for me. My research focuses primarily on the hydraulic application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to analyze and calculate hydrodynamic loadings acted on the inundated structures, and the scour rate on the river bed. CFD technique can be an effective tool to design reasonable geometries of structures related to force loadings.

Technology for CFD in hydraulics is becoming more and more efficient to finish an unbelievable assignment of computation via large storage capacity, high-performance, multi-core, parallel process and remote control opportunities. CFD simulates results that benefit engineering in accuracy and costs.

UNL's College of Engineering has excellent faculty with rich experience and popular commercial software to apply in my CFD research. My advisor, Professor Junke Guo, gives me very specialized guidance to enhance my fundamental research in CFD theory and practice. Under his guidance I completed my master's degree and am continuing my Ph.D. studies. My course advisers, Prof. Stansbury, Prof. Zhang and Prof. Admiraal, provided very helpful theoretical courses in the environmental field so that I can apply this fundamental knowledge to the analysis of engineering issues.

I hope to complete my goals of research step-by-step and achieve gradually more applications of CFD to hydrology and hydraulics in our research center's CFD digital lab.