We are open to disciplinary and cross-disciplinary research ideas that personally interest you and broadly fit within the theme of our GAANN project - Sustainable, Equitable, and Climate-Resilient Civil Infrastructure Systems. Our faculty not only have disciplinary expertise in civil and environmental engineering (structures, materials, transportation, water resources, geotechnical, etc.), but they also do highly interdisciplinary work to address critical issues facing our world related to sustainability and energy; infrastructure systems; climate change, hazard mitigation and adaptation; and environmental and public health. Our faculty mentors will work closely with the GAANN Fellows to further develop and refine individual research projects. Some preliminary ideas are listed below:
- Optimal spatio-temporal sensing strategies of civil infrastructure systems
- Multi-hazard risk analysis and management of civil infrastructure
- Advancing rural affordable housing sustainability through energy efficiency and hazard resilience assessment
- Stormwater infrastructure under climate uncertainty
- Food waste as a feedstock for decentralized, community-based Biorefining
- Community-based nutrient recycling
- Climate-resilient bridge-road-stream networks
- Climate-resilient wastewater and stormwater systems for socioeconomically disadvantaged rural village centers
- Climate-resiliency through green stormwater infrastructure using real-time sensing
- Geothermal systems for improving climate resiliency and sustainability of buildings, roads and bridges
- Computing external social costs for civil infrastructure projects
- Evaluating the effectiveness of infrastructure investments and barriers to travel behavior change to mitigate transportation GHGs in small and rural communities
- Understanding the impacts of transit disinvestment on vulnerable transit-reliant populations
- Evaluating the effectiveness of infrastructure investments and barriers to travel behavior change to mitigate transportation GHGs in small and rural communities
- Evaluating adoption and use of electric vehicles (EVs) in small and rural communities
- Modeling the potential impact of autonomous vehicle (AV) use on travel demand, energy use and GHG emissions in small and rural communities