Four Civil and Environmental Engineering Students Named 2014 Future Faculty

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering students Arefeh Nasri, Yang (Carl) Lu, Michael Maness and Gabriela Niño de Guzmán have been selected by the A. James Clark School of Engineering for the 2014 Future Faculty Program. This program was created to cultivate the next generation of engineering teachers.

Nasri is a Ph.D. candidate in Transportation Engineering working with Dr. Lei Zhang. She received her M.S. in Transportation Planning from Rutgers University in 2009. Her research focuses on the relationship between land-use and transportation, and she is in particular interested in investigating how the overall physical form of urban environment influences people’s travel behavior and their automobile use.

Lu is currently a Ph.D. candidate working with Dr. Gang-Len Chang in the Traffic Safety & Operations Lab. He received his B.S. in Automation from Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, China, in 2008 and his M.S. in Civil Engineering from University of Maryland, College Park, in 2012. Lu's research interests include freeway operation, network traffic control, traffic simulation and railway operation.

Maness is a Ph.D. candidate in Transportation Engineering with research interests in travel demand modeling, travel behavior analysis and social network analysis. His research focuses on social interactions in travel decision-making through the incorporation of social models into statistical and agent-based models.

Niño de Guzmán is a Ph.D. candidate in the Environmental Engineering program, focusing on the development of a reactive permeable barrier and its subsequent microbial colonization for the effective, long-term remediation of groundwater at a Superfund site in Beltsville, MD. Her research interests include microbiology, environmental chemistry, sustainable materials, and environmental restoration.

The Future Faculty Program's mission is to increase the number of highly qualified teachers the Clark School produces for the world’s engineering school and prepare selected Clark School doctoral students to achieve career-long success in the academic world as teachers and researchers. As part of the program, selected students are provided with a $3,000 travel stipend to present their research at professional conference and placed in leading institutions where their impact can be greatest and where they can continue to partner with the Clark School.

For more information, including how to apply to the Future Faculty Program, visit their website.

Published January 13, 2014