Fellowship focuses on fixing infrastructure

2008-11-10

Students selected for the IGERT Fellowship program are studying the technical and political aspects of decision-making as it relates to diagnostics of roads and bridges.

By Jason Kornwitz

Students selected to the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) Fellowship program, an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Intelligent Diagnostics for Aging Civil Infrastructure Systems, recently discussed their research projects, the curriculum’s multidisciplinary approach and the importance of intelligent diagnostics on everyday life.

“Each day I go over the Longfellow Bridge on the Red Line,” said IGERT Fellow Bethany Carlson. “It was tested and deemed deficient and now it needs to be fixed. How does any state agency or company prioritize what infrastructure gets fixed and when? How do you monitor how well a bridge is doing? We look at it from sensing angles, from mathematical angles, from damage detection angles.

“There is a wealth of questions that we don’t yet know how to answer. What we do know is that our continued safety when traveling over these bridges depends on us exploring these questions.”

Indeed, the fellowship program, which includes a partnership with the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez (UPRM), trains students rooted in technical disciplines such as civil, electrical, mechanical and computer engineering to address the technical, societal and political challenges associated with the most difficult infrastructure problem: finding the hidden effects of deterioration and damage because of natural and man-made disasters.

Six fellows at Northeastern and two at UPRM participate in research projects, take courses and engage in weekly roundtable sessions via live videoconferences focused on the technical and political aspects of decision-making as it relates to diagnostics of publicly owned infrastructure.

In the future, IGERT Fellows will take courses in system identification and experimental diagnostics.

“My goal is for each IGERT Fellow to be engaged in a stimulating and meaningful research project that combines our unique IGERT coursework and interactions with the many Northeastern faculty with expertise in infrastructure diagnostics and policy,” said Sara Wadia-Fascetti, Northeastern professor of civil engineering, associate vice provost for faculty advancement and director of the Intelligent Diagnostics IGERT program.

After graduating from the doctoral program, which includes a two-year fellowship in Intelligent Diagnostics, fellows will take positions of influence in academia, research laboratories or industry and will create a positive impact for the advancement of technology and the nation’s infrastructure, said Wadia-Fascetti.

Carlson, whose research interests include structural dynamics and nondestructive evaluation, hopes to explore strategies for locating and determining the severity of structural damage and plans on specializing in structural health monitoring.

She said the IGERT Fellowship program gives her a leg up on the competition when it comes to finding a job in structural damage analysis.

“Coming out of Northeastern with a graduate degree in structural engineering, companies right away know that a student not only has a strong grasp of the technical knowledge, but also hands-on, practical knowledge,” she said.

Much like Carlson, IGERT fellow David Abramo, who wants to develop a method to automate bridge deck imaging to determine whether a bridge’s structure weakens because of either corrosion or air gaps within the decking, appreciates the diverse opportunities the program presents, especially when it comes to examining the role of public policy in civil infrastructure.

“Our public policy course is designed for us to think about the political and societal aspects of what it means to be in the engineering industry,” Abramo said. “Society identifies and defines problems differently than an engineer. An engineer might think something is really important but society might say, ‘Oh, that’s not really important to us right now or is this the best way to spend money?’ This is a unique and interesting aspect of the fellowship program because, as an engineer, I don’t often get to think in this way.”

Meanwhile, IGERT fellow Marie Lluberes, who studies change detection for hazard mitigation through the monitoring of civil infrastructure at UPRM, said civil infrastructure provides the means for a society to function, making it critically important that it remains safe.

“Using the advantage that technology provides us to do it in a preventive, effective way is crucial,” she said.

Last fall, the National Science Foundation awarded Northeastern a $3 million IGERT grant to produce diagnostic engineers. In addition to Wadia-Fascetti, the program is led by Dionisio Bernal, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, Carey Rappaport, professor of electrical and computer engineering and Barry Bluestone, director of the center for urban and regional policy as principal investigators. Christopher Bosso, associate dean of the school of social sciences, public affairs and public policy and Gilead Tadmor, professor of electrical and computer engineering, also have significant involvement.

For more information on the program and on all eight IGERT Fellows, please visit http://www.igert-id.neu.edu.