Latest News to the Group...
November 2023: Research Presentations to CRREL
The annual project meeting of CREATEs and CRREL was held from November 6 to 9, 2023 at South Jersey Technology Park. Together with other collaborators, Dr. Zhu's team member including Mr. Chenchen Huang and Mr. Weiling Cai presented their project updates and new phases about iFROST Mapper and pavement modeling projects. Good job everyone for completing the presentations!
June 2023: Rui Liu Successfully Defended His Ph.D. Dissertation
Mr. Rui Liu passed his Ph.D. dissertation defense, entitled "Evaluating frozen soil properties with electrical resistivity measurement and electro-magnetic induction methods" in front of a committee constituted of Dr. Cheng Zhu (Rowan University, CEE), Dr. Yusuf Mehta (Rowan University, CEE), Dr. John Schmalzel (Rowan University, ECE), Dr. Gilson Lomboy (Rowan University, CEE), and Dr. Benjamin Barrowes (DoD-CRREL). His dissertation was well recognized by all of the committee members. Congratulations Rui!
January 2023: Rui and Shaini Presented at TRB
Postdoctoral fellow Shaini and doctoral student Rui gave two podium presentations at TRB 2023 in Washington DC. Their research shows our recent results on the electrical resistivity measurement of frozen soils and biochar-improved soil responses under changing climate conditions, respectively. We received some valuable comments and suggestions for future work. Well done Shaini and Rui!
December 2022: Chenchen Passes His Ph.D. Proposal Defense
Ph.D student, Mr. Chenchen Huang, passed both his qualification exam and dissertation proposal defense in December 2022. The proposal titled, "Multi-scale Numerical Analyses of Construction Materials for Improved Resilience and Sustainability of Civil Infrastructures," was reviewed by a committee of Ph.D. professionals. Chenchen will continue his research investigating the multiscale and multiphysics behaviors of geomaterials, funded by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Keep up the great work Chenchen!
May 2022: Research Presentations to ERDC
The annual project meeting of CREATEs and ERDC (CRREL and GSL) was held from May 16 to 19, 2022 at South Jersey Technology Park. Dr. Cheng Zhu, his Ph.D. students Rui Liu, Chenchen Huang, and Dr. John Schmalzel's PhD student Jim Kang presented their project updates and new phases about iFROST Mapper and pavement modeling projects. The presentations were well discussed in the meeting, with many valuable comments received. Good job everyone for completing the presentations!
March 2022: Rowan Students Showcased at DVGI 2022
Three Rowan University students were highlighted at the 2022 Delaware Valley Geo-Institute (DVGI) Student Night event held at Villanova University. At the event, Kaniz Roksana gave a podium presentation (picture left) and Chenchen Huang gave a poster presentation on some of his current research (picture right). Undergraduate student Kayla King also won the DVGI Student Scholarship. Congratulations to all!
February 2022: DVEW Student Paper Award Winners
After being held virtually last year, the Deleware Valley Engineers Week returned in-person for the 2022 award ceremony. The ceremony was held on February 17th, hosted by the Engineers' Club of Philadelphia. The event featured guest speakers and awards for outstanding engineering professionals, college students, and high school students. This year, Rowan University students Kaniz Roksana, Kayla King, Sarah Herchenroder, Daniel Horner, Nicolas Zugaib, Husain Ali, and Jacob Christy won the Outstanding Student Paper Award for their paper titled, "Remediation of Soil Desiccation Cracking by Bioremediation Techniques." Congratulations everyone!
January 2022: Poster Presentations at TRB 2022
The 101st annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) was held January 9-13 in Washington DC. During the convention, over 400 workshops, lectern sessions, and poster sessions were presented to thousands of participants. For this year's meeting, Dr. Cheng Zhu and his research team were approved for two poster presentations. The first presentation was titled, "Evaluating the Potential of Using Foamed Concrete as the Insulation Layer for Pavement sin Cold Regions." The second was titled, "Investigation of Thermally and Mechanically Balanced Structural Design of Insulated Pavements for Cold Region Applications."
December 2021: The Fall 2021 Semester Comes to a Close
The fall semester comes to an end with the presentation of three Engineering Clinic projects, a trademark of Rowan University's undergraduate engineering program. The three presentations were titled, "Investigation of Electrical Properties of Soil During Freeze-Thaw Conditions," "Soil Stabilization Through the Bio-cementation Method." and "Developing Mixed Reality Games for Active Geotechnical Engineering Learning." Each presentation summarizes the project progress made by 5-6 undergraduate students, with the support of graduate students. The presentations were well received and exemplified the hard work of the students this semester. Great job everyone!
November 2021: Zhuang Zhuo Successfully Defended His Ph.D. Dissertation
Zhuang Zhuo passed his Ph.D. dissertation defense, entitled "Design and Analysis of Flexible Insulated Pavement for Cold Region Applications" in front of a committee constituted of Dr. Cheng Zhu (Rowan University, CEE), Dr. Yusuf Mehta (Rowan University, CEE), Dr. William Riddell (Rowan University, CEE), Dr. Gilson Lomboy (Rowan University, CEE), and Dr. Hamed Hosseinzadeh (University of South Carolina, ME). His dissertation was well recognized by all of the committee members. Congratulations Zhuang!
November 2021: Rowan University Well Represented at Geo-Extreme 2021
The Geo-Institute (GI) hosted the Geo-Extreme 2021 conference November 7-10, 2021, in Savannah, Georgia, which is the first in-person event since the Covid-19 outbreak. Dr. Cheng Zhu and his PhD student, Zhuang Zhuo, presented their research, titled “Insulated Pavement Analysis based on a Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical (THM) Coupled Finite Element Model”. The presentation gained interest from scholars and received many valuable comments. Nice job!
September 2021: Project Presentations to ERDC
The annual project meeting of CREATEs and ERDC (CRREL and GSL) was held from September 14 to 16, 2021 at South Jersey Technology Park. Dr. Cheng Zhu and his Ph.D. student, Zhuang Zhuo, presented their project updates about the iFROST Mapper and insulated pavement project. The presentations were well discussed in the meeting, with many valuable comments received. Good job Zhuang for finishing his project!
February 2021: Rowan University Well Represented at DVEW
The Engineers' Club of Philadelphia hosted the 2021 Delaware Valley Engineers Week (DVEW) for the first time virtually over Zoom. The opening ceremony, held on February 18th, included distinguished guest speakers and award presentations. This year, Rowan University students won two of the three Outstanding Student Paper Awards. The first titled, "Investigating Electrical Resistivity of Clayey Soils Under Freeze-thaw Cycles," by Rui Liu, Marybeth Sanford, Flynt Tuller, and Ryan Eno. The other winner, "3D Characterization of Desiccation Cracking in Clayey Soils Using a Structured Light Scanner," was written by Zhuang Zhuo, David Spell, Mitchell Myers, Lauren Blaze, Amanda Groschadl, Joseph Goodberlet, and Jiwon Yang. Great job everyone!
January 2021: The GLUES Team Expands
We are excited to announce the addition of two Ph.D. students, Chenchen Huang (left) and Kaniz Roksana (right). Chenchen earned his B.Eng. and M.S. in Civil Engineering at the China University of Petroleum (East China). He will be researching "experimental and numerical investigations of thermo-hydro-mechanical coupled behaviors of rocks." Kaniz joins the team with a B.Sc. and M.S. in Transportation and Highway Engineering from BUET, with her focus of research being "bioremediation of toxic metal-contaminated soil and groundwater." We are also excited to welcome Dr. Shaini Aluthgun Hewage (bottom), who has earned her Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at NJIT, and is joining the team as a post-doc fellow. Welcome to Rowan University everyone!
December 2020: Rui Passes His Ph.D. Proposal Defense
Ph.D student, Rui Liu, passed both his qualification exam and dissertation proposal defense in December of 2020. The proposal titled, "Evaluating frozen soil degradation under changing climate with electrical resistivity measurement and electro-magnetic induction methods," was reviewed by a committee of Ph.D. professionals. Rui is continuing his research investigating the electrical properties of frozen soil while aiding in the development of the iFrost Mapper Project, funded by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Keep up the great work Rui!
May 2020: Mark Vail Graduates with a Master's Degree
The GLUES Team would like to congratulate Mark Vail on earning his M.S. degree in Civil Engineering. During his time at Rowan, he researched the bio-remediation of desiccation cracks in clay soils. Mr. Vail published his research in his master's thesis titled, "Remediation of desiccation cracking in clayey soils through bio-cementation and bottom ash." He won the DVEW Outstanding Student Paper Award in 2020 as well as being recognized for the Oustanding Student Award by the Rowan CEE department before graduating. Congratulations Mark!
March 2020: Graduate Students represent Rowan at DVGI Student Night
The 2020 Delaware Valley Geo-Institute Students Night was held on March 11 at Villanova University in Radnor, Pennsylvania. The event recognized outstanding students at the collegiate level with a passion for Civil/Geotechnical Engineering and Applied Geoscience. In addition, three student presentations were conducted. Among the presenters were Rowan Ph.D. students Zhuang Zhou and Rui Liu. Zhuang presented his research, titled “A Methodology for Back-Calculating the Thermal Properties and Design of Thermally Insulated Flexible Pavement Structures.” Meanwhile Rui presented his work, titled "Experimental Characterization of Frozen Soil through Electrical Resistivity Measurement."
February 2020: Outstanding Paper recognized at 2020 DVEW Awards
The 2020 Delaware Valley Engineers Week (DVEW) Kick-Off Banquet and Awards Ceremony was held on February 13 at the Double Tree Hotel in Downtown Philadelphia. The event gathered various outstanding professional engineers, as well as faculty and students from across the region. Awards were presented to the Outstanding Engineer and Young Engineer of the Year, as well as to Outstanding Engineering Students and Student Papers. In the Outstanding Student Paper Category, Mark Vail, Michael Moroski (pictured), Nathaniel Maute, Luke Anderson, and Jiwon Yang, were recognized for their work on "Crack Remediation using Bio-Cement and Bottom Ash Admixture for Clay under Wetting-Drying Cycles." Congratulations to everyone!
January 2020: Rowan Well-Represented at 2020 Annual TRB Meeting
The 99th Annual Transportation Research Board (TRB) Meeting took place January 12-16, 2020, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. The conference brought together over 13,000 transportation professionals from around the world with over 5,000 presentations in nearly 800 sessions and workshops, addressing topics of interest to policy makers, administrators, practitioners, researchers, and representatives of government, industry, and academic institutions. Among the presenters were Rowan M.S. student Mark Vail, as well as Ph.D. student Zhuang Zhuo (pictured). Zhuang had two separate presentations, one being a podium presentation entitled "An Impact of Different Flexible Insulated Pavements on Temperature Distribution: A Experimental and Numerical Analysis." Meanwhile he also has a poster presentation entitled "A Methodology for Backcalculating the Thermal Properties and Design of Thermally Insulated Flexible Pavement Structures." Meanwhile Mark had a podium presentation entitled "Remediation of Desiccation Cracking in Bentonite through Microbial-Induced Calcite Precipitation." Congratulations to everyone and way to make Rowan proud!
November 2019: Zhuang Zhuo passes his Ph.D. Qualification Exam
Zhuang Zhuo passed his Ph.D. Qualification Exam, entitled "Experimental and numerical investigations of insulated pavement in cold regions" in front of a committee constituted of Dr. Cheng Zhu (Rowan University, CEE), Dr. Yusuf Mehta (Rowan University, CEE), Dr. William Riddell (Rowan University, CEE), Dr. Gilson Lomboy (Rowan University, CEE), and Dr. Hamed Hosseinzadeh (Rowan University, ME). His Ph.D. thesis proposed to perform experiments on the heat transfer process of insulated pavements and a thermo-hydro-mechanical coupled simulation with consideration of damage evolution and phase change. All the best to Zhuang going forward!
August 2019: Rui Liu joins the Rowan GLUES Team
We would like to welcome Rui Liu to the GLUES Research Lab. Rui arrives having earned a B.Eng, as well as a M.S. in Geotechnical Engineering from Southeast University, Nanjing, China. He joins the team as a Ph.D. student, researching "Electrical and electromagnetic soil investigation in cold regions" under co-advisory of Dr. Zhu and Dr. Yusuf Mehta (Rowan University, CEE). Welcome to Rowan Rui!
June 2019: Rowan M.S. Student Honored with Distinguished Fellowship
The Chateaubriand Fellowship in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics & Health for doctoral students aims to initiate and reinforce collaborations, partnerships, or joint projects between French and American research teams. The Chateaubriand Fellowship supports Ph.D. students registered in an American university who wish to conduct part of their doctoral research in a French laboratory. Among the 2019 recipients for this fellowship is Rowan M.S. student Danilo Zeppilli. He will be continuing his research internship for 4 months at École des Ponts ParisTech.
June 2019: Mark Vail represents Rowan at EGRWSE Conference
The 2nd International Conference on Environmental Geotechnology, Recycled Waste Materials, and Sustainable Engineering (EGRWSE) was held at the University of Illinois at Chicago from June 16-19. Many engineering students and professionals attended and presented their research on various environmental and geotechnical engineering topics. Rowan University M.S. Mark Vail was in attendance, presenting his work on "Remediation of Desiccation Cracking in Bentonite through Microbially Induced Calcite Precipitation." Other contributors to the work who were not present include Rowan Class of 2020 B.S. students Michael Moroski and Luke Anderson.
June 2019: SHAKER Shield named 2018-2019 Outstanding CEE Clinic
The SHAKER Shield was named as the Outstanding Rowan Civil Engineering Clinic for the 2018-2019 academic school year. The goal of this research project is to design a seismic-protection device for individuals and small groups to activate when they know an earthquake is imminent. Among the students who participated on the SHAKER Shield team and were recognized were Taylor Groves, Christian Naugle, and John Laranjeira.
