Virginia Tech civil and environmental engineering graduate student, Emily Jannace, has received the Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The fellowship includes an opportunity to participate in the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., along with a stipend for tuition assistance. The mission of the fellowship program is to attract the nation’s brightest minds to the field of transportation and advance transportation workforce development.
Jannace is originally from Long Island, New York. She got her BSCE from Embry-Riddle Aeronatical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. She is now pursuing her M.S at Virginia Tech focusing on resilient infrastructure and cargo elasticity following a natural disaster. Specifically, she is planning to use the funding from this fellowship to do a case study of Hurricane Maria’s effect on Puerto Rico. “The hope is that this research brings to light the need for resilient infrastructure and the importance of it,” she said. “The research could be used by municipalities to help lobby for additional funding to help ensure new infrastructure is built to be resilient and existing infrastructure is updated before more natural disasters occur.”
Jannace hopes to continue to earn her Ph.D. and then become a professor, while continuing to do research. “This fellowship will give me the resources to delve deeper into this research that is more relevant than ever as severe weather is occurring with increasing frequency,” she noted.