Audrey Ryan, a senior in the Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering Department was awarded the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Foundation 2015 Structural Engineering Travel Fellowship of $20,000. Audrey will be graduating this spring from the BS/MS program, with a bachelor’s in architectural engineering and a master’s in civil engineering. She will then travel to Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand over the course of five months to study examples of biomimicry in bridge and building structural systems. Biomimicry is an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies. Structures to be studied include the Swiss Re Building in London (structure based on the skeleton of the glass sea sponge) and the New Beijing Poly Plaza (seismic mechanism inspired by a human arm and flexible envelope inspired by spiderwebs).
Audrey credits her motivation to apply for this fellowship to her experience in Drexel’s BioDesign course taught by Eugenia Victoria Ellis, PhD, AIA (CAEE and Westphal). This course inspired her to think about how natural systems can encourage practical design. She also credits the History of Architecture sequence taught by Mark Brack, PhD (Westphal) with sparking her interest in architecture throughout the world.
Audrey is very involved with research opportunities in the CAEE Department. She is currently doing an independent study with Ivan Bartoli, PhD on finite element modeling for non-destructive testing of masonry structures and also works in the dLUX lab with Ellis on daylighting optimization strategies for existing buildings. She and her senior design team (Tom Ben-David, Elizabeth Daugherty, Brad Dibenedetto, Jeremy Sulak) are working on the design of an affordable modular housing prototype with Professor James Mitchell, AIA. Audrey is also a member of Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honors Society.