REU Site: Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation - Reducing Seismic Vulnerability

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The George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) is an NSF funded distributed laboratory aimed at reducing the vulnerability of the nation's infrastructure to the damaging effects of large earthquakes, tsunamis, and other large scale disasters. The NEES collaboratory includes 14 large-scale experimental research facilities that house state-of-the-art equipment including shake tables, tsunami wave basins, field testing facilities, large-scale structural laboratories, and geotechnical centrifuges. The facilities are linked by an advanced IT cyberinfrastructure, allowing real time collaboration among laboratories and researchers doing testing. This interlinked system of laboratories enables researchers to study the response of engineered systems at a scale and complexity not possible before. This collaborative research has significantly increased our knowledge of vulnerable systems, accelerating the rate at which research discoveries are made and integrated into technologies, design rules, and knowledge for use by engineering practitioners. This three-year REU Site program will provide a unique opportunity for eleven undergraduate students to be involved in NEES projects and be engaged in utilizing NEES advanced cyberinfrastructure. The REU students will have a variety of opportunities to work with world class researchers and their graduate students in the areas of structures, geotechnical engineering and tsunami mitigation. Those students interested in information technology development will work with experts to develop new tools that can become part of the cyberinfrastructure network supporting the NEES community. Students will synthesize research outcomes into learning resources that can be shared on the cyberinfrastructure being developed by the NEEScomm IT team. REU participants will also perform research at several laboratory nodes around the country, and will collaborate between the cohorts using 3D virtual world technologies. In addition to the research projects, students will be engaged in a series of enrichment activities that will help them become more confident as researchers, including an orientation meeting which will help foster community building among all the students, provide a technical program that introduces the basics of earthquake engineering and NEES to the students, provide training in communication and effective library research, and provide information about graduate school. Team building activities will also be an important program element to help develop the cohort. REU students will participate in the Tsunami Shelter Challenge, developed as an education and outreach activity at NEES@oregonstate. Participants will go on at least one field trip which they will be required to report on in the virtual environment through a multimedia presentation. At the end of the 10-week REU program another NEES facility site, will host the Young Researcher Symposium. This program will be two days, and the main focus will be student presentations of their final research. The program will include a facility tour, short technical program with a keynote speaker, the presentation of student research, and a final dinner with awards for best presentation. Students will prepare for this event through a Virtual Research Symposium with students from several other NSF REU programs using a 3D virtual world. What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity? The Principal Investigators plan to recruit a diverse pool of students to engage with the NEEScom network of researchers and affiliates. They are committed to attracting underrepresented students and aim to build diversity within the NEES program, the earthquake engineering community, and the engineering community as a whole by recruiting 50% of its participants from underrepresented groups in STEM careers, including women, minorities and persons with disabilities.