Congratulations to Shitao Shi for receiving a Student Travel Grant from the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) to attend the November Task Committee and Committee on Specifications meetings in Chicago! This program connects students with AISC Staff mentors and provides the opportunity to meet some of the leading engineers and researchers in the industry and to see firsthand how AISC’s specifications and standards are made. Shitao’s Ph.D. research on seismic stability assessment and design of steel buildings is partially funded by AISC.
Category Archives: Award
Schissler Wins AISC Scholarship
Congratulations to Lauren Schissler for receiving an AISC/Associated Steel Erectors of Chicago Scholarship for the 2023-2024 academic year! Lauren is an M.S. candidate and Lewis Graduate Fellow working on a collaborative research project with Professors Elbanna, Fahnestock and LaFave. The project, Strength and Serviceability of Damaged Steel Girders, is sponsored by the Illinois Center for Transportation.
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/
Miller Wins CEE Staff Award
Congratulations to Marissa Miller, CEE Office Manager, for winning a CEE Staff Award for Excellence! Ever since she joined CEE in spring of 2018, Marissa has provided outstanding support to the Structures Group. Thanks Marissa!
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 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.
Deierlein Delivers Newmark Lecture
This week the structures faculty hosted Prof. Greg Deierlein, Blume Professor of Engineering at Stanford University, as he delivered the Newmark Distinguished Lecture, “Informing Strategies to Promote Earthquake Resilience through Performance-based Simulations.” Thanks to Prof. Deierlein for visiting and giving an excellent talk!
Illinois Structures Faculty, Staff and Students with Prof. Greg Deierlein during his Newmark Lecture Visit (photo by Prof. Bill Spencer via Drone)
Fahnestock ASCE Fellow
Larry Fahnestock has been named a Fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction. This honor is held by 3% of ASCE members and it recognizes significant contributions and creative engineering solutions that change lives around the world.
Best Paper Award
The paper “I-5 Skagit River Bridge Collapse Review” has been selected as the best paper for 2016 by vote of the Associate Editors of the ASCE Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities.
Stark, T.D., Benekohal, R., Fahnestock, L.A., LaFave, J.M., He, J. and Wittenkeller, C. “I-5 Skagit River Bridge Collapse Review,” Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, ASCE, 04016061. dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CF.1943-5509.0000913