Sogand Hasanzadeh, assistant professor in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering and the Division of Construction Engineering and Management, has received the Thomas Glavinich ELECTRI International 2020 Early Career Award. The six-month Early Career Award study, Examining a Latent Side-Effect of Electrical Safety Interventions among T&D Line Workers, will utilize an immersive mixed-reality combined with wearable sensors to empirically examine the risk perception and risk-taking behavior of T&D line workers as a function of the number and type of fall and electrical safety interventions in place for their protection.

In this project, Hasanzadeh will closely collaborate with American Line Builders Chapter to define conditions under which T&D line workers take more risks in the dynamic construction environment, to determine the precursors of unsafe behavior and identify at-risk workers, and indeed, to lay the foundation for improving T&D safety training. The findings of this project will have immense translational importance in how the electrical construction industry approaches the control needed post safety interventions. This award will increase the visibility of the electrical construction industry at U.S. colleges and universities and promote long-term relationships among university faculty, ELECTRI International and National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA).

About Early Career Awards

Getting fresh research ideas and perspective is important to ELECTRI. The very successful Early Career Awards (ECA) program creates early career interaction between the electrical construction industry and faculty members at the assistant professor level in engineering and construction management disciplines at U.S. colleges and universities.

ECA applications are limited to one per faculty member per year and must focus on a topic of significance to the electrical construction industry. The researcher must be an assistant professor who has not yet conducted major research for ELECTRI. ELECTRI International’s Program Review Committee reviews ECA proposals and ranks them based on intellectual merit, innovation, student engagement and the level of interaction the proposed activity will promote between the grantee and the electrical construction industry. ECA projects, funded by ELECTRI, increase the visibility of the electrical construction industry at U.S. colleges and universities and promote long-term relationships among university faculty, ELECTRI International and NECA.