Graduate Research Assistant Field Mission 2002
The MAE Center’s annual Earthquake Field Training Mission was held May 18-25. Students and a faculty advisor traveled to Taiwan for a week of study at the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE). Graduate students selected to participate in this year’s event were Stephanie Arbogast (Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville), Cale Ash (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Amber Grubbs (Texas A&M University), and Jennifer Knapp (Georgia Institute of Technology). Joining MAE Center students this year were PEER students Charles Chadwell (University of California, Berkeley), Constantin Christopoulos (University of California, San Diego), and Shana Crane (Washington State University), and MCEER student Diego Lopez Garcia (State University of New York at Buffalo). Faculty advisor Paul Roschke, Texas A&M University, rounded out the group. The Tri-Center group was welcomed by Dr. C.-H. Loh, Director of NCREE. Experts from NCREE presented technical talks and a tour of the NCREE research facilities to the students to prepare them for the field trip exercise. Then the group, along with NCEER staff members, traveled to the Chi-Chi earthquake region of Taiwan, site of a devastating earthquake in 1999. Among sites visited were Feng-Yuan, Chung-Cheng Park (fault precipice), the Pei-Feng Bridge, Shi-Kang Dam, Shu-Kung Junior High School Chi-Lu Cable Stayed Bridge, and the town center of Chi-Chi (epicenter). Local residents also invited the group into homes and businesses to view non-engineered repair and retrofit.
Following their return to Taipai, students met for further discussion and to give presentations on selected research topics to the group. Participating MAE, PEER, and MCEER students have been asked to make two or more presentations about their field trip experience to groups in the U.S., one presentation to a group without an earthquake engineering background and the other a technical seminar for graduate students and interested faculty at their home institutions.
