Civil Engineering undergraduate student Alana Wilbee was named a recipient of the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Fellowship for the 2015 award year. Alana was selected for this honor among over 16,500 applicants. Only 2,000 awards are made across all of science and engineering each year in the U.S.

Alana's research at Purdue has focused on the use of performance based design approaches to design smart buildings. These buildings would have the ability to adapt their dynamic behavior in response to the dynamic loadings. For example, in an earthquake a smart building to use advanced damping devices such as magnetorheological devices to optimally dissipate energy and reduce or eliminate damage in that structure.

In addition to performing experiments at Bowen Lab to validate wireless sensors for control in buildings, she has conducted research in Harbin, China and has published an article in the Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research. Alana plans to implement novel strategies to achieve resilience in our communities by integrating her interests in networking and cyberinfrastructure with her strong foundation in structural engineering for her PhD studies.