Research
Asking questions is at the center of what I do. I like to describe my job as "formalized curiosity."
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Check out the research projects I've been involved in the past few years. You'll find everything from my dissertation to side projects.
PROJECT 1
Dissertation: Capstone to Work
This project is centered around how engineers learn in the workplace.
The engineering world is constantly becoming more complex. In the interest of producing top-quality engineers ready to tackle the wicked problems they will face in the real world, engineering programs must constantly work to understand industry and how their graduates transition into professional practice. Yet, some scholars argue that engineering programs do not sufficiently prepare students for their role in industry. We call this space between academia and industry the "competency gap." To better understand this gap, research is needed to uncover the details of the transition between school and work and explore how students adapt to practice. More specifically, questions about how students learn in the workplace need to be asked in order to help students be successful in a challenging new environment after graduation. By moving beyond the idea that learning must be encapsulated in formal schooling, questions about learning on the job can be answered to prepare novice engineers to tackle the complex, multifaceted problems modern engineers are expected to solve.
Check back for updates and publications, both are coming soon.
PROJECT 2
Mixed-Reality in Civil Engineering
Mixed-reality refers to the mix of real and virtual worlds. This project seeks to understand how we can leverage mixed-reality to enhance civil engineering education. More specifically, we are aiming to develop mixed reality (MR) technology aimed at sufficiently replicating
physical design and construction learning environments to enable access to students at institutions without sufficient resources; and assess the impact of a MR-facilitated cyberlearning environment on cognitive-, affective-, and skill-based learning that occurs during traditional (in-
person) design and construction activities.
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We're just getting started, so come back later to see what we're finding.
PROJECT 3
Master's Thesis: Vertical Strength of Wood Buildings in Seismic Conditions
Multi-story wood-frame buildings are becoming increasingly common, especially in areas like the western United States. Past earthquakes have shown that multi-story wood-frame buildings that have a soft and weak first story relative to upper stories are vulnerable to collapsing on the first story. This vulnerability has raised interest in understanding how the relative strength of each story of a wood building affects its performance in an earthquake.
This project studies four strength distribution cases. The first three cases are called the Parabolic, Triangular and Constant strength distributions named after the shape of the building’s story to story strength profile. For example, the Triangular case has the least amount of strength on the top story, which increases linearly in the lower stories down to the first story, which has the greatest strength. The fourth case, called the Baseline case, is based on actual building designs. All four strength distribution cases have the same first story strength.
Two evaluation methods are used to test the strength distribution cases. The first, known as a pushover analysis, applies lateral forces to the building until the roof reaches a specified displacement. The second, called an incremental dynamic analysis, subjects the building to increasingly intense earthquakes until a certain amount of displacement is reached in any story. The results of these analyses showed that the Parabolic strength distribution most effectively used the strength available in every story of the building to delay the onset of collapse and to distribute the location of the collapse story.