ASDSO’s tenth annual Student Paper Competition will be held in conjunction with Dam Safety 2019, Sept. 8 – Sept. 12 in Orlando, FL. We invite students to submit papers on dam and levee safety. Topics may include traditional areas of design engineering, structural and geotechnical analysis, hydrology, hydraulics, construction, risk management and hazard mitigation, emergency action planning, dam security, and policy. In addition, case studies, emerging and innovative technologies, and senior capstone projects are encouraged. Example topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Public safety at dams, including low-head dams
- Legal, social, economic, environmental impacts of dam removal
- Real-time hydrologic modeling applied to dam safety decision making
- Stability & safety of fly ash impoundment structures
- State & federal dam safety programs: What’s working? What’s not?
- Effects of extreme flood events (e.g. hurricanes, tropical storms) on dam safety
- Private dam ownership responsibility for dam safety
- Remediation alternatives for deficient (unsafe) High Hazard Potential dams &
- Levees & hazardous low-head dams
- Policy toward management of existing trees on dam & levee safety
- Innovative monitoring techniques for dam & levee safety
- Lessons learned from dam & levee failures
Students must submit an abstract of 350 words or less, and an executive summary of at least 1,200 words, in either MSWord or PDF format. To submit your abstract and executive summary, click here. (Note: Students and faculty may co-author a submission as long as a student is the lead author).
Each winning paper will receive $500 along with a $400 travel stipend to attend Dam Safety 2019 in Orlando. Winning papers will either be published in the Journal of Dam Safety or included in the conference agenda and published in the annual conference proceedings. Other selected entries will be invited to participate in the Dam Safety 2019 Poster Forum. The deadline to submit executive summaries and abstracts is February 5.
2018 Student Paper Competition Winners
Graduate Winner
Deformation-based versus Limit Equilibrium Analyses to Assess the Effect of Repeated Rise and Fall of Water Level on the Stability of Princeville Levee
Rowshon Jadid, North Carolina State University
Co-Authors: Brina Montoya, Assistant Professor; Mo Gabr, Professor, North Carolina State University; and Victoria Bennett, Assistant Professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Undergraduate Winner
Robustness and Extensibility for Resilience in the Oroville Dam Crisis of 2017
Lucien Hollins, Arizona State University
Co-Authors: Daniel Eisenberg, Ph.D. Candidate; and Thomas Seager, Associate Professor, Arizona State University
Award History
| 2017 | Shahin Safavizadeh, North Carolina State University; Thomas Robbins, Boise State University |
| 2016 | Emily Reed, Tennessee Technological University; Yi Tyan Tsai, University of California Los Angeles |
| 2015 | Alexander P. Sturm, University of California Davis; Ali Asghari Tabrizi, University of South Carolina; Lourdes Polanco-Boulware, Utah State University |
| 2014 | Daniel VandenBerge, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Beena Ajmera, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Laura Ferre, University of Colorado-Denver |
| 2013 | Natalie A. Youngblood, Colorado State University; Lourdes Polanco, Utah State University; Ebrahim Ahmadisharaf, and Nowfel Mahmud Bhuyian, Tennessee Technological University |
| 2012 | Sittinan Benjasupattananan, University of Delaware; Wyatt Jenkins, University of Missouri; Kevin Cook, Kristin Pesman, Katrina Schwab, James Shannon, and Justin Milne, Seattle University |
| 2011 | Christopher Sandt, University of North Carolina; Mishelle Shriro and Diego Cobos-Roa, UC-Berkeley; Mahdi Khalilzad, North Carolina State University |
| 2010 | Benjamin Skousen, University of Utah; Lourdes Polanco, Utah State University |
| 2009 | Rachael Bisnett, Purdue University; David Judi, University of Utah; Abouzar Sadrekarimi, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign |
