CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Three University of Illinois doctoral students have won Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide awards from the National Science Foundation. They are Nardine Abadeer, chemistry, and Evgueni Filipov and Andrew Mock, civil engineering, all of whom also are fellows in the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship program.
The GROW program, which began this year, is a partnership between NSF and select international funding agencies that allows current NSF fellows to conduct extended research overseas. Participating countries are Denmark, Finland, France, Japan, Korea, Norway, Singapore and Sweden. GROW provides recipients $5,000 to cover travel and research costs; host countries contribute allowances for living expenses.
Abadeer, of Wausau, Wis., will spend four months in Gothenborg, Sweden, working with professor Mikael Kall in the department of applied physics at the Chalmers University of Technology. Abadeer’s project explores the use of nanotechnology to disable certain pathogenic bacteria. She hopes to develop a novel strategy for targeting and destroying bacterial biofilms, which are communities of bacteria known to be highly antibiotic resistant. Because biofilms are difficult to target, Abadeer will use specialized technologies developed by Kall to determine how to target gold nanorods to bacterial cells. If the targeted gold nanorods succeed in destroying the cells’ biofilms, Abadeer’s research will contribute to the development of the next generation of antibacterial treatments.
Filipov, of Watertown, Conn., will conduct studies applying the mathematical principles of origami to architectural design so that buildings can be better constructed to withstand natural forces such as earthquakes and hurricanes. He will work for seven months in Japan with professors Yasushi Yamaguchi and Tomohiro Tachi at the University of Tokyo. “I want to create cost effective, aesthetically inspiring, safe and resilient building structures that can morph and adapt to adverse conditions,” Filipov said. “The buildings would be of particular importance in developing nations to provide safe and economic real estate development, and also rapidly deployable shelters that could be used in disaster relief efforts.”
Mock, of Edmond, Okla., will conduct structural dynamics research in France for seven months at the École Normale Supérieure de Cachan with Fabrice Gatuingt. Mock will devise computational models to predict how cracks in concrete form and propagate under stressful conditions. The models will be applicable to bridges, buildings, and other structures. “Although advances in materials and design methodologies have improved the strength and durability of concrete structures, designers still lack reliable computational tools for predicting the complete response of structures to gravity, wind, earthquake, and time dependent effects,” Mock said. “To improve these predictions, our research aims to create and validate a computational model that will better describe the behavior along a crack in reinforced concrete.”
Ken Vickery, the director of external fellowships in the U. of I. Graduate College, said: “An international experience can add a vital facet to a student’s graduate education, so it’s great that NSF is fostering these overseas research opportunities through the GROW program. With science becoming increasingly borderless, it’s important for graduate students to cultivate a global sensibility and start building their own international networks, and GROW is helping students do just that.”
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