Geotechnical & Geoenvironmental Engineering MU

James Bryce Awarded a 2008 Washington Internship for Students of Engineering (WISE)

Each year, outstanding engineering students are selected to spend nine weeks in a special summer program in Washington, D.C. to learn how government officials make decisions on complex technological issues and how engineers can contribute to legislative and regulatory public policy decisions. The WISE Program is ranked as one of the best Internship opportunities in the U.S. by the Princeton Review.

For nine weeks, beginning on June 8th, James and the students sponsored by other organizations will interact with leaders on congressional
committees, in executive office departments, and in corporate government
affairs offices. In addition, he will have the opportunity to research and present a paper on an engineering-related public policy issue that is important to the members of one ASTM Committee. James will be working for Subcommittee D18.14 on Geotechnics of Sustainable Construction. He will focus on life cycle analysis of recycled materials versus traditional construction materials. This is a nine week Internship that will end August 10 th. www.wise-intern.org/

James is Civil & Environmental Engineering major in his junior year at the University of Missouri where he is working on an undergraduate honors research project to develop the engineering designs for utilizing waste plastic bottles for geo-construction materials.

MUGEO Student Members Attend Conference on the 2007 IBC Building Code

MUGEO student members standing in front of the St. Louis Engineers Club after attending a conference discussing the 2007 IBC Building Code (September 20, 2007).

PhD Geotech Student Receives $10,000 USSD Scholarship

Richard A. Coffman, a doctoral student at the University of Missouri-Columbia, received a $10,000 scholarship to support his research, Application of InSAR Remote Sensing for Performance Monitoring of Dams.

The United States Society on Dams annually awards a scholarship to a USSD Student Member whose graduate-level research studies have a potential for developing practical solutions to design and construction problems and other dam-related issues.

Fellowship Awarded to PhD Geotech Student
Alexandra Wayllace, PhD candidate, was awarded a Portland Cement Association (PCA) Education Foundation Fellowship. She was one of six recipients in 2006 to receive a $20,000 stipend, plus travel expenses to present her research at the annual PCA Fall Committee Meetings and the Spring ACI convention.

MS Student Receives Fellowship and Travel Award
Nathan Textor, MS Candidate, was awarded a Graduate Study Fellowship from the ADSC-IAFD – International Association of Foundation Drilling. This is one of 12 fellowships given to graduate students across the nation. He received $3000 and all expenses paid to the ADSC Annual Meeting in Orlando.

Geotech Student Receives Third Place in Poster Competition
Jianhua Li, PhD Candidate, Geotech Group, recently collected third place honors in The New Madrid Chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute sponsored Earthquake-Hazard Poster Competition (EHPC) held on February 1 at the Busch Student Center at St. Louis University. Judging was based on the poster and a brief presentation by the students. Jianhua’s poster was entitled: “Study Of Surface Wave Methods For Deep Shear Wave Velocity Profiling In The Northern Mississippi Embayment.”

MU Geotech Team Takes National Championship
The MU Geotechnical Engineering team of undergraduate students Hendrik Schoeman, Bradley Koester, Daniel Kuhn and graduate student Daniel Huaco competed Feb. 21^st in the Geo–Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ retaining wall–building competition in

Denver, Colo. The MU team took the National Championships for the second time in three years defeating five other teams from across the nation. Team members won a $2,000 travel grant from the Geo–Institute. Way to go!

Visiting Scholar From Korea
Young Kim, an exchange student at the University of Missouri during the Summer 2006, participated in the English Proficiency and Internship program
(http://asia.missouri.edu/miti/prog-pepi.php) which consists of intensive English studies three days each week and two days each week working at an internship in the student’s area of study. Young did his internship in our Geotechnical Engineering program. During his internship, Young collaborated with our graduate research assistants on several projects. He spent several weeks working with Andy Boeckmann and Nathan Textor on the large scale slope simulation system. In this capacity, Young helped to construct and instrument earthen slopes for study of the failure (landslide) process. He also performed some modeling in this effort. Young also worked with Brandon Parrish and other graduate students to construct a prototype, geotextile-wrapped-face wall using marginal backfill. The project is a test case for Brandon’s masters thesis. Young also worked on our project using geotextiles to reduce dust from gravel roads and our program of settlement monitoring of municipal solid waste.