SE Solutions was pleased to recently present scholarships to three Purdue Structures students to help defray the cost of their education. Aishwarya Puranam, Lucas Laughery and Francisco Pena were the recipients of the awards. This is the fourth year that SE Solutions has offered the scholarships.

Purdue University SE Solutions Structures Scholarship Winners (l to r): Aishwarya Puranam, Lucas Laughery,
and Francisco Pena

Aishwarya Puranam, an International student from Hyderabad, India, received her BSCE from Purdue University, and she will be finishing her MSCE this May (2016). She plans to continue on towards a PhD; her graduate research is on reinforcement limits in reinforced concrete flexural elements such as slabs, beams, and walls with regular and high-strength steel reinforcement.

Lucas Laughery received his BS degrees in civil engineering and architectural engineering from Missouri S&T in 2012. In 2013 he earned his MSCE from Purdue University with an emphasis on structural engineering. His doctoral thesis focuses on the seismic response of reinforced concrete (RC) frames containing high-strength longitudinal steel. For this, he conducted 20 tests of RC frames on an earthquake simulator. Lucas will finish his PhD this spring or summer.

Francisco Pena received his BSCE from Universidad del Valle at Cali-Colombia. He finished his MSCE last August (2015) with a 3.9 GPA at Purdue. He currently is working on a doctoral thesis related to developing a fragility analysis of structures subjected to ground motions in a rapid manner using limited computational resources.

Francisco was motivated to focus his study on mitigating and recovering structures from the damage caused by natural hazards because around 85% of the population of Colombia lives in areas of intermediate to high seismic risk. For this reason, he has been involved in the study of different alternatives for the rehabilitation of structures. Francisco plans to return to Colombia as soon as he finishes with his PhD, since this study has been funded by his government.