Engineering Professor earns NSF’s prestigious $500,000 early career award
By Julie Messersmith / January 24, 2017
Michael D. Shields, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, has been chosen by the National Science Foundation for its prestigious CAREER Award, which recognizes early stage scholars with high levels of promise and excellence.
Using this $500,000, five-year grant, Michael will study the influence of real, observable dynamic loads that are randomly varying in nature (e.g. wind velocity and pressure) on structures that exhibit complex behavior. This study will enable more accurate and informative structural modeling that will lead to improved design practices for high performance structures that operate for longer service lives at lower cost. The research will be applicable to structures of all sorts where efficiency is critical and loads are highly unpredictable, ranging from civil structures to aircraft, automobiles, ships, and spacecraft. The award also will support the development of new undergraduate research modules that are designed to introduce students to careers in research, and to teach them basic research skills that they can use in careers from academia to industry. These modules will be made publicly available for use by others.
Michael’s CAREER Award is jointly supported by the NSF’s Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation’s Structural and Architectural Engineering and Materials and Engineering for Natural Hazards programs.
