My personal LCA project
During an Life Cycle Assessment Class I started a project on comparing different Managed Aquifer Recharge technologies on their environmental impacts during the construction projects based on the infiltration they provide.
For comparing MAR technologies based on efficiency, hydraulic assumptions must be made and the developed LCA model needs to account for energy and material during the production process as well as the end-of-life use of spcific MAR sites. The LCA class is history for me now, but the projects still interests me so I am currntly working on refining the process based model to get an answer for: What system is the most sustainable to recharge my aquifer under which conditions? A question that is worth answering, especially in California.
PhD Research at UC Merced
Being part of Dr. Markolfs lab concerned with resilience and infrastructure in an interdependent world, I am starting my journey from my background in water infrastructure design with resreach to adress the question of climate change in our design standards.
Climate change influences multiple input parameters for the engineering design process and I am currently looking into pilot projects and methods for climate-change-informed designs. This includes new infrastructure ideas to adress issues with changing natural and anthropogenic circumstances and how sustainable they are.
Diploma thesis research at TU Dresden
During my Diploma thesis research of 4 months I worked under Dipl.-Ing. Niklas Schwiersch at the Institute of Hyrdaulic Engineering and Technical Hydromechanics exploring mathematical methods for the modeling of failure probability design.
Research included modeling baseline cases to test alternatives to Monte Carlo methods and discussing its application in engineering practice and consulting.
Visiting student research UNR
Research in the geotechnical engineering lab group around soil structure interaction during earthquakes. Liquefaction of saturated sandy soils, a process during earthquake strong shaking leaves buildings tilting and causes strong foundation settlement in some cases. My reserach centered on ejected ground near buildings, forming ’sand volcanos‘ and an analysis of historic case studies. The statistical data from this can be used to point towards knowledge gaps between the soil and the response of building during earthquake events.
During my time at the University of Nevada, Reno I was supported by the Fulbright Travel Grant as well as the Promos Scholarship by the German Academic Exchange Service.
Undergraduate Research Assistant at TU Dresden
During my time as undergraduate in Dresden I was working for PhD students and faculty supporting research on wave impact on shores, especially wind wave impact on artifical lakes in former opencast mines. My focus was on testing open access modelling code/software of sediment transport (on sea shores) on its applicability to model artificial lakeshores and case studies of slope stability.