Environmental engineering student wins Department poster competition

By Peter Murphy

Eleven students representing each concentration within the Department displayed posters and discussed their research with faculty judges, peers and a few invited speakers.

Assistant professor, Pinar Okumus, who works with a few students who participated in the competition presented three awards (and large checks) to the winners. Arvid Masud, an environmental engineering PhD earned first place and $250. His research, 3d Printed Graphene Based Hybrid Aerogel for Contaminant Removal from Water, covers ongoing research between he, assistant professor Nirupam Aich and a few other UB engineering students.

“Since joining the Department as an Environmental Engineering graduate student in fall 2015, Arvid has performed high quality research and contributed to the field significantly,” Aich says.

The president of the Department’s Graduate Student Association (GSA) earned second place in the competition in addition to playing a significant role in planning the event. His research, Retrofit of Reinforced Concrete Shear Walls Using Weakening and Self-Centering: Numerical Modeling was the highest rated structural engineering poster. He received the second-place prize ($150) from his advisor, Okumus.

Third place and an award of $100 went to Yushan Fu for her poster on nonlinear dynamics behaviors of flexible conductors and the effects of interconnection resulting from such nonlinear dynamics. Her presentation was notably creative. Fu incorporated ponytails, sticks and string into her presentation.

Masud will represent the Department (and will be one of eight representatives from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences) in the University-wide competition on Thursday, April 25.

For more photos from the poster competition, visit this link.