CEE Student Spotlight: Ayomide “Zul” Kazeem
Third-year PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
This year marked an exciting period of progress for Zul Kazeem’s research, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance the resilience and sustainability of infrastructure systems. Kazeem was selected as one of the top three abstracts in the Ohio Fresh IDEA Competition, earning second place. At WE Local Milwaukee, she won both the Collegiate Oral Presentation Competition and the Collegiate Poster Competition, providing an opportunity to share her work with a broad engineering audience. She also received an NSF-funded travel grant to attend the NHERI Computational Academy at UCLA, where she engaged with groundbreaking research from peers and experts in the field. In addition, Kazeem was nominated as an associate member of Sigma Xi, the scientific research honor society.
Kazeem also earned third place and the People’s Choice Award at APP’s Three-Minute Thesis Competition, highlighting her ability to communicate complex research in an accessible and compelling way. She credits her advisor and colleagues for their guidance and support throughout the year, noting that their encouragement has been invaluable in reaching these milestones.
Kazeem’s accomplishments are just one example of how students thrive within the dynamic, supportive academic environment fostered by the department.