Project Grant 2548358

The National Science Foundation Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation awarded the University of Texas at San Antonio $420,275 on October 1, 2026, under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to coordinate a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site focused on computational workforce development in natural hazards engineering and resilience.

The STRONG-R REU site will prepare twenty-seven undergraduate students across three cohorts during a ten-week summer program to address infrastructure vulnerability and resilience against extreme natural hazards including wind, earthquakes, and water. Students will conduct hands-on research using advanced facilities operated by four Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) network facilities: the Rapid Earthquake Damage Assessment facility at the University of Washington, the SimCenter at UC Berkeley, DesignSafe at the University of Texas at Austin, and centralized coordination at UTSA. The program encompasses large-scale experimental testing, high-performance simulation, reconnaissance, and community-level resilience modeling. Students will evaluate infrastructure vulnerability, design mitigation and retrofit strategies, and analyze cascading impacts of hazard events on built environments. Professional development activities will engage academic mentors, industry professionals, and public-sector partners.

Work is performed geographically distributed across the three NHERI sites (University of Washington, UC Berkeley, and University of Texas at Austin) with administrative coordination in San Antonio, Texas. The performance period runs from October 1, 2026, through September 30, 2029. UTSA acts as the child recipient within the University of Texas System.