Guest lecturer Shawn Smith, licensed psychotherapist and CEO of Don't dis-my-ability is back for more dialogue on a very timely topic in our Neurodiversity Spring Discussion Series. Register here. 

All the Feels: Being an Empath in Challenging Times
with Shawn Smith
February 12, 2021
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Dyslexia: Visualizing Success
March 12, 2021
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.

College on the Spectrum
April 23, 2021
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.

This series is hosted by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and is open to the UConn community. Space for each session is limited to 50. Please pre-register to reserve your place. Once you have registered, you will receive a confirmation email. 

Location: All events will be conducted online via Webex. Links will be supplied to all participants one day prior to the event.

For more information, or to request accommodations to participate in this event, please contact Connie Syharat at (860) 486-3785 or connie.syharat@uconn.edu

Marisa Auguste, Driver Behavior Analyst and Research Assistant for the Connecticut Transportation Safety Research Center (CTSRC), weighed in on a discussion of high-risk drivers and car insurance on WalletHub. Ms. Auguste's work involves the analysis of state-wide data to identify behaviors that are associated with increased risk of motor vehicle crashes. Learn more about the issues related to high-risk drivers and SR-22 insurance here.

For more about human behavior in the driving environment, check out Ms. Auguste's blog: Drivers Behaving Badly

CEE Graduate Student Leadership Initiative (Download description and template here)
Marina Astitha, Associate Department Head for Graduate Education, Equity and Inclusion
Graduate Courses and Curriculum (GR C&C) Committee: Christine Kirchhoff, Kay Wille, Arash Zaghi,
Jin Zhu

January 2021 (2nd revision)
The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is pleased to announce the continuation
of the CEE Graduate Student Leadership Initiative. The scope of the Initiative is to recognize,
motivate, inspire, and support graduate students who excel both in their studies and in
leadership and service to the graduate student population and their field of study.
Through this initiative, the CEE Department will provide: a) a Graduate Student Leadership
award or b) a Graduate Student Travel award. Both awards include funds that can be used for
conference participation (poster or oral presentations) or professional development
opportunities.

Requirements and Application
CEE graduate students participating in an MS (plan-A only) or PhD degree program are invited
to apply by submitting a resume and brief essay (a template is provided at the end of this
document).

For the Leadership Award: The 1-page essay should clearly articulate the student’s actions to
develop leadership skills or leadership activities and vision to become a leader in their graduate
student community and academic field of study. The Leadership award will only be granted to
students that have already cultivated some leadership and community building skills (for
example, see items 1 and 3 in the example list that follows).

For the Travel Award: The 1-page essay should articulate the student’s vision to become a leader
in their graduate student community and academic field of study and the actions they will take
to reach their goal. The Travel award is intended to support students who do not yet have
leadership experience but who articulate a strong interest and passion to grow their leadership
skills and lay out specific steps to achieve the desired leadership skills in their essay.
Leadership

The essay is also an opportunity to reflect on the people that have inspired you to be a leader and
your vision of what leadership means for you personally. Applicants should submit two names
of faculty or collaborators that can verify and support actual or planned leadership skill
development as articulated in the applicant’s essay. The essay must also include an estimate of
the travel budget (maximum $500 for the Leadership award or $300 for the Travel award),
including the name and location of the conference, workshop or professional development
seminar. The official acceptance of the abstract in a conference or participation in a workshop
must be provided for reimbursement of travel expenses.

Examples of activities that demonstrate leadership actions, skills or vision are included in the list
below.

1. Hold an active membership or leadership position in their academic community.
Examples of UConn communities are, but not limited to:

 Student Association of Graduate Engineers-SAGE
 John Lof Leadership Academy
 Institute of Transportation Engineers Student Chapter- UConn ITE
 ASCE Student chapter
 Student leader for the graduate student cohort of their technical group

2. Presented research at a conference/workshop in the past academic year including
participation at the graduate student poster competition organized by SoE.

3. Assumed a leadership role in their professional community by helping organize a
workshop or a session at a conference.

The applicant must not be a recipient of CEE’s Graduate Leadership or Travel award within the
same academic year. The GR C&C Committee will be responsible for the selection of successful
applicants.

Recipients of the Graduate Leadership award will be asked to host an event for fellow CEE
graduate students, in the semester following their award acceptance. The event’s theme will be
chosen by the awardee in consultation with the GR C&C committee and will be an opportunity
to share lessons learned and discuss leadership opportunities and roles for interested graduate
students.

Please send your essay and resume or any questions you might have to Prof. Astitha at
marina.astitha@uconn.edu with the subject of the email noting “Graduate Leadership Initiative”.
Both the essay and the resume must be titled using the following format:
First_name_Last_name_Concentration_essay.pdf and
First_name_Last_name_Concentration_resume.pdf.
Rolling deadline: applications are accepted on a continuous basis.

Please use the template found here.

The UConn Crumbling Foundations Team is please to announced that we are opening our testing program to affected homeowners in the region. Applications are accepted from Connecticut and Massachusetts homeowners, who have completed a visual inspection from a licensed engineer and have a report available to the team for evaluation.

In the first phase of the testing program, we expect to test 50 homes in the January to June time frame. Applications will be evaluated on a rolling basis – please note that not all requests can be accommodated. For further information and evaluation criteria, please check the Our Method page.

To apply, please fill out the Google Form.

For further questions, emails us at crumblingconcrete@uconn.edu