Yaghoob Farnam, a PhD candidate in the Civil Engineering Materials Group working under the supervision of Professor Jason Weiss, has received the 2014 Portland Cement Association (PCA) Education Foundation’s J. P. Gleason Fellowship.

The support provided by the PCA Education Foundation is used to identify and attract outstanding candidates in the field of the cement and concrete. Yaghoob is one of four students who were selected in 2014 for this prestigious award within the U.S. and Canada.

Yaghoob’s fellowship will help to support research to investigate the Damage in Cementitious Materials Exposed to Deicing Salts. Nowadays, the widespread use of deicing salts is one of the major causes that can lead to a rapid degradation of concrete structures, costly repairs, and early replacement of concrete infrastructure elements. Every year, a large portion of transportation budgets in North America is spent to repair or replace the damaged infrastructures. Yaghoob’s research will help to understand the damage mechanisms and to find a ways to mitigate concrete deterioration by deicing salts.

More information on the J.P. Gleason Fellowship can be found here: http://www.cement.org/for-concrete-books-learning/education/education-foundation/research-fellowship-program

Information on Yaghoob’s research can be found on Professor’s Weiss’s webpage at: https://engineering.purdue.edu/~concrete/weiss/index.html