SAFETY FIRST

_{Erik Juarez, an assistant engineering technician in the Engineering Hi-Bay, speaks to a high school class about the functions of a computer numerical control machine and how engineering students can program it to produce complex parts they have designed using computer-aided design software packages during a summer camp held June 20-24, 2022, on the Edinburg campus.} _{PHOTO COURTESY MANUELA CANTU}

Center receives $10M grant to help students

The University Transportation Center for Railway Safety at UTRGV has received a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to promote safety in railway transportation systems.

UTCRS is one of 34 university transportation centers that obtained grants adding up to $435 million from the Transportation Department on Feb. 21 after 230 applications were received.

These awards will assist “the next generation of transportation professionals in making our roads, bridges, rail, shipping, and airspace more innovative, resilient and equitable as well as help the American people travel more safely, quickly, and affordably,” according to the Transportation Department website.

The principal investigator of the grant is Constantine Tarawneh, senior associate dean of the UTRGV College of Engineering and Computer Science, director of the UTCRS and the Center for Multidisciplinary Research Excellence in Cyber-Physical Infrastructure Systems and a professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department.

“The focus of the center … has five objectives: research, education, workforce development, technology transfer and community engagement,” Tarawneh said. “We are training the students for the next generation transportation field careers. We do technology transfer, meaning some of the research is leading to products that we develop, and we deploy into the railroad industry, and, of course, to be put in field service.”

Tarawneh said the center had to write a proposal for the grant.

“So, [the] last competition started in 2022,” he said. “We applied for that. There were 230 applications for [34] centers. And, so, we were one of the [34] selected to receive $10 million to renew the center. Our theme of the center is smart technologies for safer railways.”

The center operates as a consortium with the Texas A&M University Transportation Institute, the University of Nebraska Transportation Center, the University of South Carolina, the University of California-Riverside and South Texas College.

_{Constantine Tarawneh, a professor of mechanical engineering, speaks to middle school students during a summer camp held June 20-24, 2022, about the train wheel-axle assemblies and the technology developed at the University Transportation Center for Railway Safety. Tarawneh said the technology developed can help prevent train derailments by detecting bearing and/or wheel failure early on to initiate preventive maintenance rather than have these components fail during the service operation.}

“We [will] get $2 million a year for five years,” Tarawneh said. “So, it’s a five-year project. So, that’s a total of $10 million. But this time, we have more activities, meaning we are creating some short courses and programs for professionals in the rail industry to try and educate them about new technologies and how to use those technologies and how to implement them.”

Co-principal investigators on the UTRGV grant include Mohsen Amjadian, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering; Mustapha Rahmaninezhad, an assistant professor in practice in the College of Engineering and Computer Science; Dimah Dera, an assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department; Heinrich Foltz, a professor in the department of Electrical Engineering; Angela Chapman, an associate professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning; and Arturo Fuentes, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

The center also promotes railway safety in the community.

“And, of course, community engagement through our summer camps, where we host about 1,300 K-12 students from third grade all the way to high school every year for one month in June, where we bring them and we educate them about railway safety,” Tarawneh said. “We teach them robotics.We teach them different activities … so that we can raise awareness about railway safety and careers in STEM.”

Sergio Miguel Martínez, a mechanical engineering graduate student, said the grant will benefit engineering students.

“It’s going to allow a lot more students to be able to conduct research,” he said. “[It] offers us opportunities in the way of continuing education. Like, I know Prince [Evans Mensah, a mechanical engineer graduate student] and myself, we have recently been admitted to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for [our] doctorates. The opportunity was made possible through grants, such as the one we got from the U.S. Department of Transportation.”

Tarawneh said the majority of the funds are for undergraduate and graduate students.

“This grant is set to hire 25 students, almost 10 graduate and 15 undergraduate students, which it will pay for,” he said. “So, the undergrads will get almost $1,000 a month. … The graduates, of course, they’ll get $1,100 a month, plus their tuition paid. So, they won’t have to pay a penny. It covers their tuition and their stipend.”

Tarawneh said the center is “still waiting on the start date” of the grant but anticipates it to be awarded by Fall 2023.

Santana Gutierrez, a mechanical engineering senior, said the grant will be beneficial for engineering students.

“[It will] give them the opportunity to learn hands-on and … new skill sets that are not taught in the classroom,” Gutierrez said. “So, with that being said, I think it’s very, very beneficial to students like myself and to those in that nature to get, you know, that knowledge gained outside the classroom.”

He said the grant will help promote railway safety.

“We are on the forefront of changing and improving technologies for the roadway community,” Gutierrez said. “I see it as a big benefit to where we are on the forefront, you know. We’re the ones who are going to make the change, that our names are going to be on those papers, on those products.”