• The GAANN Fellowships have an yearly stipend of up to $37,000 and tuition.
• Once admitted, up to $1,000 are available for a campus visit to offset some of the travel expenses.
• The GAANN fellows will also receive a signing bonus of $1,000 to help defray costs associated with first year student fees.
• Access to up to $3,000 per year for the first three years for conference travel and other research expenses such as a computer and laboratory supplies.

Note: The graduate fellows MUST be US Citizens and Permanent Residents.

The focus of this GAANN grant is to develop research and education capabilities in Sustainable, Equitable, and Climate-Resilient Civil Infrastructure Systems. Climate change is among the most pressing challenges of our time. In 2020 alone, the U.S. experienced 22 weather and climate disasters each costing over a billion dollars in damage (NOAA, 2021). Moving forward, the impacts of climate change are expected to further intensify, pointing to the need for immediate action. These impacts cross social strata – every American is vulnerable, from the poorest to the most well-off. However, climate change disproportionately affects vulnerable populations (including low-income households, immigrants, indigenous communities) and particular geographic areas due to their location and their ability to cope with different climate hazards (EPA, 2017).

Infrastructure investments present an opportunity to update natural and built infrastructure systems by positioning them (and the communities they serve) to adapt to a greatly altered climate future and extreme weather events. Climate impacts can also be mitigated by designing infrastructure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, for example by improving the efficiency of water treatment processes, reducing landfill and agricultural emissions, and building infrastructure to support zero emission electric vehicles and non-auto travel. Infrastructure investments also present an opportunity to address historic and ongoing inequities. Built infrastructure does not always yield the same benefits or burdens for everyone; for example, in the 20th century, highway and toxic waste disposal sites were disproportionately located in the heart of communities of color. In recent years, the impacts of climate change have exacerbated existing infrastructure inequities. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina revealed devastating failures of flood control and emergency evacuation that were largely borne by poor Black residents of New Orleans.

Whether disparate outcomes are intentional or not, building a civil engineering workforce that comprises and works with people that are served by these systems is a precursor to designing equitable infrastructure systems. The need for full participation, inclusion, and empowerment of historically under-represented segments of society in all venues where engineering is taught, practiced, and supported is unequivocal.

UVM CEE faculty have the expertise that are critical to educating the next generation of civil and environmental engineers to design sustainable and equitable climate-resilient infrastructure and to conduct the research needed to develop actionable solutions to the challenges posed by climate change.

If you feel that you want to help change the world and envision working on research that will address the pressing need to design civil infrastructure systems for resilience to climate-related risks and to support greenhouse gas reductions the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Vermont might be the place for you.

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

The program is open to excellent students who:

• Are admitted into our PhD program in Civil and Environmental Engineering.
• Are a citizen or permanent resident of the United States.
• Can demonstrate financial need.
• Are planning a career in teaching and/or research.

Women, underrepresented minorities, veterans, and individuals identifying with historically underserved groups (first-generation college students, socio-economically disadvantaged, differently-abled, LGBTQ, etc.) applicants are particularly encouraged.

Although students with prior engineering Master’s degrees are preferred, exceptional candidates without a Master’s will be considered.