USU engineering student receives Eisenhower Fellowship
Utah State University engineering graduate student Gary Haderlie has received a 2006 Dwight D. Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship from the Federal Highway Administration. Haderlie will receive $11,500 to be used for schooling expenses at USU as well as stipend money for a trip to Washington, D.C., in January 2007 to present an abstract of his research. The fellowships are presented to students pursuing degrees in transportation-related fields.
Haderlie’s research focuses on hydraulics and water resources. He is working to design culverts correctly and preparing data for the Federal Highway Administration to update its culvert design manual.
“It is quite meaningful to be selected for this fellowship,” said Haderlie. “There are many good candidates from across the United States who can apply for this fellowship, particularly many Eastern schools near Washington, D.C., that have contacts in that area.”
The fellowship will allow Haderlie to conduct additional research regarding multiple culverts. An area of focus is the design of culvert configurations that may be used for fish passability.
Haderlie said that working for various transportation departments was impressive to the judges and helped him earn the fellowship. USU’s national reputation in the area of hydraulics also helped his chances of being selected. USU has completed numerous hydraulic research projects for government transportation agencies, as well as for many private water-related businesses and other public water-related groups.
“When I was working as an engineer in Washington state, much of the literature I worked with was published by people at USU,” said Haderlie.
“The Hydraulics Lab at the Utah Water Research Laboratory is one of the flagship labs in the world,” said Blake Tullis, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and Haderlie’s supervising faculty mentor. “There are very few government or private facilities in the world that have the capability to do what we do here. I get requests from employers regularly asking for names of USU civil and environmental engineering graduates with hydraulics experience. The research at the lab is applied, and that seems to be a positive for both students and future employers.”
Haderlie has spent one semester at USU and expects to finish his master’s in May 2007. Before coming to USU he looked at several other schools across the country and decided that USU would be the best place for practical experiences because of its nationally known Hydraulics Laboratory. He earned a bachelor’s in civil engineering from the University of Idaho in 2003.
“This fellowship means a great deal to me and my family and makes it financially possible for me to attend school,” said Haderlie. “I came back to school after working for a couple of years, and we needed this opportunity to be able to stay in school.”
For more information on USU’s Hydraulics Engineering Lab, visit http://www.engineering.usu.edu/cee/hydraulics/hydraulics.html. For more information on USU’s College of Engineering, visit http://www.engineering.usu.edu/.