Last month, Shala presented his work to a panel of judges at the annual Engineering Mechanics Institute and Probabilistic Mechanics and Reliability Conference in Chicago. The presentation marked the final stage of the prestigious EMI student paper competition. Presenting alongside four other shortlisted candidates, Shala was awarded third place, winning a cash prize and a certificate.
Shala’s work, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, seeks to develop numerical tools to predict damage or failure of coastal timber structures during hurricanes. Shala’s numerical damage model can already successfully predict damage due to quasi-static loading. With further examination, he hopes to extend the theory to the dynamic loading case in order to successfully predict damage caused by impact.
The EMI student competition, which is now in its fourth year, recognizes the latest voices in inelasticity and multi-scale behavior of materials and structures. Student authors who attend EMI conferences and specialize in this field are invited to submit an abstract of their work to be considered for oral presentation during the annual conference. Four to five papers are shortlisted for presentation with only three prizes available.
Organized by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the annual conference provides a forum to discuss the fundamental advances in engineering mechanics. Hosted this year by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Chicago, the conference brought together scholars from across the world to present and discuss their recent developments. To present in front of these highly regarded individuals was a fantastic opportunity and achievement for Shala.
We would like to extend our congratulations and wish Shala all the best with his continuing research.
