CEE's Florence Dadzoe Wins Award at the Society of Risk Analysis Conference
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Florence Dadzoe, a PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UMass Amherst, recently received the Student Merit Award from the Engineering and Infrastructure Specialty Group at the Society of Risk Analysis (SRA) Conference held in Austin, Texas. This award recognizes and encourages her research efforts and partially sponsored her conference expenses.
In addition to the Student Merit Award, Florence also received a travel award and complimentary registration, totaling $1,000 to help offset some of her budgeted expenses for attending the conference. These awards followed the submission and selection of her abstract titled “Prioritization of Pavement Maintenance and Rehabilitation Considering Social Equity” for a presentation session.
The abstract highlights the importance of incorporating social equity into the prioritization process for pavement maintenance and rehabilitation. This policy-oriented research aims to develop a framework to guide policymakers in integrating social equity into current methods for pavement selection and prioritization.
Florence’s research is conducted under the supervision of Assistant Professor Jessica Boakye and Dr. Egemen Okte. The ongoing study seeks to contribute to the transportation maintenance sector by addressing disparities between communities.
The initial phase of the research, which was presented at the conference, quantified existing disparities in pavement conditions and traffic volumes between Environmental Justice (EJ) Communities and Non-Environmental Justice Communities. Proposed policy solutions focus on addressing these disparities. The second phase of the research will incorporate additional parameters to further evaluate impacts and identify ideal strategies for equitable pavement prioritization.