Ben Cohen, Mustafa Furkan, and Long Nguyen receive annual College of Engineering Awards

Nguyen, Furkan, Cohen

The College of Engineering has awarded annual student fellowships to deserving Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering graduate students.

Ben Cohen (pictured right), a civil engineering doctoral student, was awarded the College of Engineering’s Weggel Family Fellowship. Ben is originally from Havertown, PA and received both his BS and MS from Drexel University with a concentration in structures. Cohen’s research currently explores work done by the Philadelphia Streets Department to identify the environmental, human, and engineered components that influence the care and maintenance of physical infrastructure assets, and discover interrelationships that may have been previously unknown. Through this research he hopes to identify processes or policy changes that can be easily adopted by the Streets Department. His overall goal is to identify practices to make the country’s transportation infrastructure management more transparent and efficient. Cohen is advised by Professor A. Emin Aktan, PhD.

Mustafa Omer Furkan (pictured center), a civil engineering doctoral student, was awarded the College of Engineering’s George Hill, Jr. Endowed Fellowship. Furkan is originally from Ankara, Turkey and received his BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Gaziantep, Turkey and his MS, in Civil Engineering from Drexel University. His research interests involve wireless sensors for asset management and health monitoring of civil structures. In March, Furkan presented a paper on this topic at the SPIE (Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers) conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Furkan has also been awarded a Postgraduate Scholarship, from the Turkish Government’s Ministry of Education. He plans to continue to work in academia after he graduates from Drexel. Furkan is advised by Professor Ivan Bartoli, PhD.

Long Nguyen (pictured left), a civil engineering doctoral student, was awarded the College of Engineering’s Joseph and Shirley Carleone Endowed Fellowship and the The Robert and Genevieve E. Lifshin Endowed Graduate Fellowship. Nguyen is originally from Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. He graduated from Drexel University with a BS in Architectural Engineering and a MS in Civil Engineering. His research involves studying the Life-cycle environmental and economic impacts for the supply chain of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) corrugated pipe in drainage applications. The intent is to predict the service lifetime of HDPE resin and alternative materials also used. Last year Nguyen was awarded 2nd place at the 2015 NEWBio student poster competition for his poster titled “Uncertainties in Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Advanced Biomass Feedstock Logistics Supply Chains.” He has also presented research posters at the Delaware Valley Geo-Institute and the Transportation Research Board conferences. After graduating, Nguyen hopes to work as a consultant and then in academia after he gains industry experience. He is advised by Professors Grace Hsuan, PhD and Sabrina Spatari, PhD.

Congratulations to Ben, Mustafa, and Long on their achievements.