NSF funds Civil Engineering summer research program

A team of faculty from the Department of Civil Engineering has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant of over $300,000 to expand their summer research program.

In March, NSF announced the award for the project “REU Site: Sustainability of Horizontal Civil Networks in Rural Areas”. The award comes after a two-year pilot period and provides funding for the next three years. With the award, the Department of Civil Engineering is now able to expand the summer research program to accommodate ten students per summer, up from five each summer during the pilot period.

The program is designed to recruit students from outside UNL to participate in research and professional development opportunities for an eight-week period over the summer. Students conduct research relevant to rural infrastructure under the supervision of a faculty mentor. In addition to the research experience, students are invited to participate in department seminars and presentations, professional development workshops, and social events such as a trip to Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo.

The research program aims to create sustainable infrastructure to improve the quality of life of populations in rural areas. Examples of research projects include creating new infrastructure materials using biofibers, green storm water management, investigating rural bridge reliability, and road diets for low volume roads. Dr. Shannon Bartelt-Hunt directs the program, and faculty mentors include Drs. Yong-Rak Kim, Joshua Steelman, Yusong Li, Xu Li, Daniel Linzell,  John Sangster, and Elizabeth Jones.

For more information and a list of research opportunities, please see the Sustainability of Horizontal Civil Networks in Rural Areas webpage.