2022 Student Notable Achievements

CEIE students take on challenges in and out of the classroom. They build bridges for hikers in forests and develop tools to forecast coastal flood hazards. Their novel approaches to engineering problems have won wide recognition.

 Sandarva Sharma won one of the department’s 2022 Outstanding GTA awards. He completed his BSc in Civil Engineering from Nepal Engineering College in 2013. He practiced civil engineering in earthquake-damaged areas of Nepal as an infrastructure engineer working on rehabilitation and reconstruction. In 2018, he completed his MSc in Geotechnical Engineering from the University of Idaho, Moscow. He graduated in December 2022 with a PhD in Civil and Infrastructure Engineering.

 Immanuel John Samuel won the other 2022 Outstanding GTA award. He is a PhD candidate, and his research focuses on Infrastructure Asset Management by proposing a framework to collect less subjective asset condition information that will be used to manage assets effectively. He is using modern technologies and techniques like Building Information Management (BIM), Augmented Reality (AR), and Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) for his research.

 Adriana Valentina Farias, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering and a Presidential Scholar at George Mason University, was selected for the 2022 WTS-DC scholarship. WTS stands for Women’s Transportation Seminar, an international organization with more than 6500 members (including women and men) and 79 chapters. This merit-based scholarship is part of WTS’s effort to shape the future of transportation for the public good through the global advancement of women. Valentina, whose research focuses on the efficiency, equity, and sustainability of express toll roads in the context of a multimodal transportation network, is among the few scholarship recipients and was recognized during the WTS-DC annual holiday event in December.

 The Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) student chapter team won the 2022 CMAA National Capital Chapter student competition. The scope of the competition was to showcase their school’s architecture/engineering/ construction program with a written presentation. In other words, “Why George Mason?” Mason’s student team consisted of Ryah Nadjafi, Kheira Bekkadja, Sofia da Silva, and Seif Ali.

 Mehrdad Ghyabi, PhD candidate, was named UTC CIAMTIS (Center for Integrated Asset Management for Multimodal Transportation Infrastructure Systems) student of the year. His work on vision-based measurements to quantify bridge deformations was featured at a special banquet during the Transportation Review Board annual meeting in 2023.

 Soelem Aafnan Bhuiyan, PhD candidate, was awarded an Institute for Digital InnovAtion predoctoral fellowship for his work on developing a data assimilation technique to improve the monitoring and forecasting of coastal hazards.

 Mason’s Engineers for International Development (EfID) team was awarded a Certificate of Appreciation from the U.S. Forest Service for their work on the Shawl Gap Trail Bridge. Working as Forest Service volunteers, the Mason engineering students took the lead on planning and designing the bridge with assistance from Forest Service engineering staff and the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. g

Students at George Mason University’s College of Engineering and Computing are dedicated to their fields, hardworking, and goal-oriented. That kind of work ethic and enthusiasm likewise exists within the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) – Mason chapter. This year, two Mason ASCE teams won first place in the Region 2 Mid-Atlantic West Symposium competitions for their steel bridge and sustainable solutions projects. The newly formed surveying team placed second.

“It’s the practical side. We provide students with the resources and support to develop them professionally, help them progress well towards their career, gain skills to be able to find a job, to speak about themselves, and build on their soft skills,” says Doaa Bondok, faculty advisor for ASCE and assistant professor in the department.

1steel Bridge Team

Seif Ali, leader of the steel bridge team, says his goal from day one was for his team to win nationals.

“I just wanted to make sure that everyone understands that we’re not just here to compete but to learn,” Ali says. He joined the Mason chapter of ASCE in the fall and immediately signed up for the open leadership spot on the steel bridge team, becoming the leader in October. He notes there were few opportunities to join student organizations during the pandemic, and joining this organization provided a chance to try something different.

Ali’s team built a bridge with plates and members, using the fabrication method to weld and join metal parts to create the bridge. A local engineering firm, Nasir and Associates, provided supplies and gave the team valuable experience-based recommendations.