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Students Present Research at 2004 REU Symposium

Students from the three centers toured the Cooper River Bridge with Project Manager Charles T. Dwyer. It will be the largest cable-stayed span bridge in North America when completed next summer.

The 2004 Annual Tri-Center Earthquake Engineering Symposium for Young Researchers, held August 5-8, 2004 at Kiawah Island Resort in Charleston, South Carolina, and organized by MCEER, was a great success. Twenty young undergraduate researchers from MCEER, PEER, MAE and FSU gave presentations on individual research projects conducted during summer internships at the following host institutions: California Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Texas A&M University, University at Buffalo, University of California at Berkeley, Davis, Los Angeles and San Diego, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Memphis, University of Tokyo, University of Washington, and Washington University in St. Louis. The students' home universities were in California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Washington, D.C. and Washington State.

MCEER’s contingent: from left: Michael Long, Abiel Carrillo, Lisa Anderson and Corey Bergad.

In addition to the exchange of engineering research, the Symposium included a tour of the Cooper River Bridge in Charleston, where students visited the cable-stayed section after viewing a presentation about the bridge's design and construction. The field trip allowed students to witness the effects of earthquake research on engineering design in a seismic region.

There were also two guest speakers: MCEER Diversity Director Makola Abdullah, who discussed the resources available to undergraduate students interested in continuing their education and the importance of promoting diversity at the graduate studies level; and Joseph Herkert, of North Carolina State University, who explained the importance of engineering ethics.

The Symposium, part of the Research Experience for Undergraduates Program funded by NSF, was a wonderful experience, giving participants the opportunity to present their research in a formal setting and meet people that might become future colleagues.

Symposium Proceedings will be available from MCEER in the near future.

-Submitted by Karla Villarreal, Florida State University