Registration is now open for the 2023 Illinois Structural Engineering Conference! Mark your calendars for Thursday, March 23, 2023 and join us at the I Hotel And Conference Center in Champaign for a great program.
Category Archives: News
AISC Internships – Summer 2023
An AISC internship offers a behind-the-scenes look at the present and future state of structural steel design. AISC is now accepting applications from students enrolled in structural, architectural, or civil engineering programs for a full-time paid summer internship at AISC’s headquarters in downtown Chicago for 2023. AISC interns support both the AISC Engineering and Research Department and the Education Department in developing technical resources for structural steel design and education.
Qualified applicants:
- Will be enrolled in at least the third year of their curriculum.
- Will have completed at least one course in structural steel design.
- Plan to continue with their education full-time in fall 2023.
Interested students should submit their resumes, including their cumulative GPA and a list of related coursework, by February 24, 2023, to hr@aisc.org with “AISC Summer Internship” in the subject line. Any related inquiries can be sent to the same address.

Shi on Winning Hackathon Team
Congratulations to Shitao Shi and his teammates for winning the 2022 NHERI Hackathon in July 2022! The teams were judged on innovation, creativity, presentation and use of DesignSafe and SimCenter tools. Shitao is a Ph.D. student studying seismic stability design of steel frames as part of a project sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Construction.
https://simcenter.designsafe-ci.org/news/2022/december/nheri-hackathon-2022/
New ASCE Journal Papers Published
Congratulations to Aradhana Agarwal and Sunny Zhou for recently publishing ASCE journal papers on their Ph.D. research! Aradhana is studying seismic stability of multi-tiered braced frames (supported by AISC) and Sunny is studying service performance of composite steel I-girder bridges (supported by ICT).
Agarwal, A. and Fahnestock, L.A. “Comparative Seismic Response Evaluation of Steel Multi-Story and Multi-Tiered Ordinary Concentrically Braced Frames,” Journal of Structural Engineering, ASCE. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ST.1943-541X.0003443
Zhou, S., Fahnestock, L.A. and LaFave, J.M. “Development of Skewed Steel I-Girder Bridge Field Monitoring Strategy through Agency Survey and Numerical Simulation,” Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction, ASCE. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)SC.1943-5576.0000740
Miller Wins CEE Staff Award
Fahnestock Appointed NSEL Director
Schissler Joins Group
Welcome to new MS candidate Lauren Schissler, who is joining the research team for the project Strength and Serviceability of Damaged Steel Girders (sponsored by the Illinois Center for Transportation)! This project is a collaborative effort including Professors Elbanna, Fahnestock and LaFave and graduate students Ahmed Ibrahim and Sanjana Ahershinge. In May, Lauren graduated with a BS in CE from Illinois and was awarded a first-place Ira O. Baker Prize and a Lewis Graduate Fellowship for study in the field of structural engineering.
Fahnestock Named Siess Faculty Scholar
Larry Fahnestock has been awarded a CEE faculty scholar appointment. The Siess Faculty Scholar position is funded by the Chester P. and Helen K. Siess Endowed Fund in Civil Engineering, which honors the legacy of former CEE faculty member and Head, Chester P. Siess (MS 1939, PhD 1948).
Zhou Presents at IBC 2022
Congratulations to PhD candidate Sunny Zhou for presenting today at the International Bridge Conference in Pittsburgh! Sunny’s presentation, “Construction and Live Load Behavior of a Skewed Steel I-Girder Bridge,” describes a portion of the ongoing project “Evaluation of Spatial and Temporal Load Distribution in Steel Bridge Superstructures,” which is sponsored by the Illinois Center for Transportation. Accompanying the IBC presentation is a peer-reviewed paper in Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, which is now available online:
Zhou, S., Fahnestock, L.A., LaFave, J.M. and Dorado, R. “Construction and Live Load Behavior of a Skewed Steel I-Girder Bridge,” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board (published online July 14, 2022) https://doi.org/10.1177/03611981221105276
Zhou Selected as Mavis Fellow
Congratulations to Siang (Sunny) Zhou for being selected as one of the Mavis Future Faculty Fellows (MF3) for the 2022-2023 academic year! Sunny is co-advised by Prof. Larry Fahnestock and Prof. James LaFave, and she is studying superstructure response and load distribution in skewed steel girder bridges under thermal and traffic loading as part of a project sponsored by the Illinois Center for Transportation.
The MF3 program is designed to prepare Ph.D. students for becoming the next generation of engineering professors through instruction and mentorship in teaching, research and service. This program is made possible by a generous bequest of Frederic T. and Edith F. Mavis. Prof. Mavis received B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois. During his career, he was a Civil Engineering faculty member at several universities and Dean of Engineering at the University of Maryland from 1957 until 1967.