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Ph.D. in Systems Engineering student Mohamed Awaad has been selected to join the prestigious of 2021.

His participation in the Summer Institute will give him experience working with models and tools in a real world environment while advancing the National Water Center’s goals of enhancing water prediction and flood forecasting technologies.

Mohamed will also develop project management skills while receiving professional development opportunities over the course of the program.

“The Summer Institute provides a truly unique opportunity to collaborate with national leaders in hydrology, modeling, and informatics, and with top graduate students in the field from all over the country,” he says.

The program is a partnership between the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) and the National Weather Service (NWS) that brings together select graduate students, federal scientists, and academics to advance the mission of the National Water Center (NWC).

Mohamed will be one of sixteen graduate students from universities and research institutes across the United States working to address challenging water resources problems through the Summer Institute. He will receive a $4,000 honorarium for his participation. 

This year, the Summer Institute will be hosted virtually from June 7th to July 23rd. Participants will work in groups on projects related to water prediction, flood forecasting, and the National Water Model, which provides forecast guidance for more than 5 million miles of rivers and streams nationwide.

Mohamed joined the Systems Engineering doctoral program at UL Lafayette in Fall 2019. He is advised by Dr. Emad Habib, an endowed chair in the Department of Civil Engineering and director of the .

Mohamed previously earned a Bachelor of Civil Engineering from Benha University in Egypt. He chose the Systems Engineering program at UL Lafayette for his doctoral studies because of the diversity of coursework it offers while still being able to specialize in Civil Engineering. 

“It is not only about learning existing techniques,” Mohamed notes. Rather, he’s now learning to create innovative complex systems.

“The Water Resources specialization, in particular, requires a full integration between academia and the public, and private and governmental agencies. The Systems Engineering Ph.D. program provides the required skills for a leadership role within a research group or company division,” he explains.

For his doctoral research, Mohamed is focused on “understanding complex flood dynamics and using numerical models to evaluate the impact of different flood mitigation alternatives in low-gradient river basins like the case of the coastal part of South Louisiana,” he says.

The College of Engineering at UL Lafayette was ranked among the country's best in the U.S. News & World Report's 2021 edition of "Best Graduate Schools."