Civil engineering PhD student Kimia Yousefi Anarak has been selected for the Thornton Tomasetti Student Innovation Fellowship of $5,000 for her research submission “Trajectory modeling of windborne debris in the turbulent urban wind field.” She plans for this research to serve as the foundation of her future PhD dissertation.

With the many different fields available within civil engineering, Yousefi Anark finds structural engineering the most intriguing. Additionally, many members of her immediate and extended family are in the civil engineering field, giving her a familiarity with the subject. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tehran and her master’s degree from the Iran University of Science and Technology.

Yousefi Anarak’s faculty advisor Assistant Professor Yanlin Guo shared, “Kimia has shown the outstanding capability of interdisciplinary learning and thinking. Although trained as a structural engineer, Kimia was able to quickly learn knowledge from other disciplines and apply them to structural engineering in an innovative way.”

Per the foundation: “Since 2008, the Thornton Tomasetti Foundation has funded more than $1,750,000 in grants, fellowships, and scholarships for undergraduate students, and those planning to pursue graduate studies in building engineering, design or technology. It is our goal, through programs such as these, to help students such as Kimia develop projects that further innovation in structural engineering and applied mechanics, especially in areas which facilitate the integration of engineering and architecture.”

Congratulations, Kimia!