Howdy!
From all our members of the SEAoT Student Chapter at Texas A&M University, I would like to provide you with an updated newsletter describing our past month’s activities.
Most recently, our chapter appointed three new student officers to lead our organization for the remainder of the year, listed below. You may find their bios at the end of this letter.
2020 SEAoT TAMU Student Officers:
- President: Mohamad Aghababaei Shahrestan, [email protected]
- Vice-President: Kulin Dave, [email protected]
- Treasurer: Ehsan Jalilifar, [email protected]
We also shifted to a bi-weekly schedule, which would allow us to host up to 6 meetings this semester. We are excited to hear from a multitude of structural engineering firms including L.A. Fuess Partners, Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, Kiewit Engineering Group, Hunt & Joiner, and Walter P. Moore. We recently had our first general meeting of the semester in which we hosted L.A. Fuess Partners, Inc. This was an incredible opportunity to learn about the details and challenges associated with the structural design of two exciting projects located in Dallas, TX.
If your company is interested in presenting at one of our student chapter meetings during the Fall 2020 semester, please feel free to contact any of the student officers listed above. We appreciate your continued support. Thanks, and Gig ‘Em!
Best Regards,
Tristian Ybarra
Past-President, SEAoT at TAMU
President – Mohamad Aghababaei Shahrestan
Mohammad Aghababaei is a graduate of Sharif University of Technology, Iran, with an M.S. in Structural Engineering, and is currently a third-year Ph.D. student of structural engineering at Texas A&M University. Mohammad has conducted multiple seismic risk and structural reliability analysis projects during his M.S. as a Graduate Research Assistant. He has been working on a wide range of researches during his Ph.D., including: (i) performance assessment of building infrastructures in Port Aransas, TX, after Hurricane Harvey, (ii) post-disaster recovery of the city of Joplin, MO, after Joplin Tornado, (iii) business recovery in the city of Lumberton, NC, after Hurricane Matthew, (iv) performance assessment of full-scale timber structures subjected to shake table testing using modern monitoring techniques, and (v) risk-based resilience assessment of communities using agent-based modeling approach. Mohammad expects to be graduated in Summer 2021. In his free time, Mohammad enjoys socializing with his friends, hiking, cooking, and watching movies.
Vice President – Kulin Dave
Kulin Dave is a graduate of Nirma University, India with a B.S. in Civil Engineering and is currently pursuing his Masters of Science degree with specialization in structural engineering at Texas A&M University. Kulin is a former employee of Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation, India a prestigious public sector unit in oil & natural gas industry and is currently serving as Director of Finance in Indian Graduate Students Association (IGSA), TAMU student chapter. He has some major contributions in research areas of prestressed concrete bridge systems, vulnerability assessment of infrastructure, seismic resistant design and finite element modeling of RC elements/framed structures and has published 2 papers in International Journals. He also served in other key positions of Departmental Head- Anti Ragging Committee, Nirma University and Team Member- Sponsorship and Publicity Division- ISTE Student Chapter, India in past and has been awarded 2019 Young Engineer Scholarship – American Society of India Engineers (ASIE), Houston. He currently serves as the Vice-President for SEAoT Student Chapter at Texas A&M University. Kulin is scheduled to graduate in December 2020 and will be interning with Texas State Department of Transportation (TxDOT), Austin this summer. In his free time, Kulin loves traveling, binge watching web-series and socializing with peers.
Treasurer –Ehsan Jalilifar
Ehsan Jalilifar is a graduate of University of Tehran with a M.S. in Earthquake Engineering and B.S. in Civil Engineering. He is currently working on his Ph.D. program in Civil Engineering with a focus on Structural Engineering at Texas A&M University. Ehsan was employed as a Teacher Assistant since his junior year untill he successfully defended his Masters’ thesis in the field of “Seismic Hazard and Risk Assessment”. Also, he was the president of “Student Scientific Association” and coordinated this student organization during his Master’s program. Currently, he is working on “The Response of Aged Timber Structures due to Seismic and Wind (hurricane) Loads” under the supervision of Dr. Maria Koliou. Ehsan is expecting to graduate in May 2022. In his free time, he enjoys playing volleyball, camping, cooking and hanging out with friends.
