NYU Tandon students will shine under IDC’s light once again
Engineering school announces its second IDC Foundation grant to support doctoral students’ research, plus education-related travel for students in civil engineering and construction management
BROOKLYN, New York, Wednesday, September 11, 2019 – Students of the New York University Tandon School of Engineering will extend their civil engineering and construction management educational experiences through research, prototyping, and networking through a new gift of $130,000 from the IDC Foundation.
The new gift will support two doctoral students and educational travel for other students in the programs.
Prior gifts from the IDC Foundation enabled NYU Tandon to establish the Institute of Design and Construction Innovation Hub, led by prominent transportation and construction executive Dr. Michael Horodniceanu, who serves as IDC Foundation chair in design and construction in the NYU Tandon Civil and Urban Engineering Department. The IDC Foundation is the legacy of the Institute of Design and Construction, the nonprofit technical college in downtown Brooklyn that trained more than 30,000 architects, engineers, and other construction-related experts between its founding in 1947 and its voluntary closing in 2015. The IDC Foundation has made grants to NYU Tandon totaling $2.46 million since 2018.
Last year’s award of scholarships, fellowships, and travel experiences from the foundation helped the department recruit a female doctoral candidate who is developing a method to enable construction workers to directly see digital building information without specialized equipment such as goggles or helmets. The candidate, Siyuan Xiang, is using mobile projective augmented reality (MPAR) technology to improve safety on construction sites.
It also allowed students in the Department of Civil and Urban Engineering to participate in prestigious competitions:
- The NYU Tandon Concrete Canoe team won the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Concrete Canoe Regional Competition in New Jersey in April, 2019.
- The NYU Tandon Steel Bridge team won the regional ASCE-AISC (American Institute of Steel Construction) Student Competition, held on May 4, 2018. Additionally, a team of seven students and two faculty advisers traveled to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to compete against 41 other teams at the National Steel Bridge Competition on June 23-25, 2018.
- A team of six students and a faculty adviser participated in the 29th Annual Associated Schools of Construction Region 1 Student Competition 2018.
“NYU Tandon plays a crucial role in the education of America’s best engineers, and the IDC Foundation is delighted to support NYU Tandon’s initiatives,” said Raymond R. Savino, president of the IDC Foundation. “Pivotal to that education is access to opportunities for NYU Tandon students to explore their interests within a range of influential experiences. It’s those opportunities — especially at the intersection of engineering, architecture, and construction management — that the IDC Foundation supports and is pleased to enhance.”
NYU Tandon Dean Jelena Kovačević congratulated the students and thanked the foundation, noting, “For NYU Tandon, the ongoing work of opening doors and creating opportunities reflects our singular commitment to our students. Everything we do depends on this. While certainly the quality of our research, institutions, and faculty is critical to our reputation, at the end of the day the real measure of our achievements is written in the success of our students. The opportunities that this grant opens serve as an exemplar of the extent to which we are committed to supporting our best and brightest.”
About the New York University Tandon School of Engineering
The NYU Tandon School of Engineering dates to 1854, the founding date for both the New York University School of Civil Engineering and Architecture and the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (widely known as Brooklyn Poly). A January 2014 merger created a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences, rooted in a tradition of invention and entrepreneurship and dedicated to furthering technology in service to society. In addition to its main location in Brooklyn, NYU Tandon collaborates with other schools within NYU, one of the country’s foremost private research universities, and is closely connected to engineering programs at NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai. It operates Future Labs focused on start-up businesses in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn and an award-winning online graduate program. For more information, visit engineering.nyu.edu.
