Cal State Fullerton civil engineering faculty member and alumna Beena Ajmera and graduate student Mohammed Al-Behadili have received top honors from the Orange County Engineering Council.
Ajmera, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, is the recipient of the 2018 Outstanding Educator Award and Al-Behadili took home the Outstanding Engineering Student Award. Both were honored at the council’s Feb. 17 National Engineers Week awards banquet.
Ajmera, whose research focuses on geotechnical engineering in the areas of shear strength and compressibility of soil, soil modification and soil dynamics, has co-authored more than 100 journal and conference papers and mentored scores of CSUF, high school and community college students. Ajmera ’12 ’11 (M.S. civil engineering; B.S. civil engineering and B.A. mathematics-applied mathematics) earned her doctorate in geotechnical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and joined the CSUF faculty in 2015.
Al-Behadili is involved in a study examining how the strength of soil is influenced by vertical stress of a building, and how the vertical stress has varied over time. He is a co-author on a paper accepted for publication in the proceedings of the International Foundations Congress and Equipment Expo and will present his research in March at the national conference in Orlando, Florida.