Ying Huang, associate professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering and Welch Faculty Fellow, has been named the 2021 NDSU College of Engineering Researcher of the Year.
Huang’s research interests include intelligent transportation systems, smart cities and smart materials, autonomous systems, structural health monitoring, corrosion prevention and assessment and pipeline risk analysis. She has secured millions of dollars in funding and was awarded a 2018 National Science Foundation CAREER grant, the foundation’s most prestigious award in support of early career faculty.
Huang joined the faculty at NDSU in 2012 after earning her doctorate from the Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Ravi Kiran Yellavajjala, assistant professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering, also was honored for his research efforts by being named the College of Engineering Early Career Researcher of the Year.
Yellavajjala received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2021. The more than $535,000 grant will fund research, hands-on learning experiences for students and outreach activities to increase the participation of Native Americans in science, technology, engineering and math disciplines.
Yellavajjala’s research develops and uses principles of experimental and computational mechanics and artificial intelligence to improve the durability and resilience of civil infrastructure.
He joined NDSU in 2016 after earning his doctorate in civil engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He received the College of Engineering’s Early Career Excellence in Teaching Award in 2019.
The College of Engineering’s final research award, Graduate Student Researcher of the Year, was presented to Dayakar Naik Lavadiya.
Lavadiya is a doctoral student in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering. His research has made important contributions in the field of structural damage detection and characterization using artificial intelligence. Other research accomplishments include eight journal papers and seven conference presentations.
Huang, Yellavajjala and Lavadiya were honored at the College of Engineering Scholarship and Awards Reception on Sept. 10.
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