From left: Ben O’Brien, undergraduate research assistant; Konstantinos Flaris, graduate research assistant; and Nadia Gkritza, professor of civil engineering and agricultural and biological engineering

ASPIRE Center team supports undergraduate research assistant's focus on social justice

Toward the end of his second semester in first-year engineering, Ben O’Brien read a book that would change the course of his life. O’Brien came to Purdue from Nebraska with the intent to study aerospace engineering. In high school, he’d excelled in STEM but he also developed a passion for social justice. He was searching for a way to incorporate social issues into his engineering coursework when he read “Right of Way: Race, Class and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America” by Angie Schmitt.

“The book is a study in how transportation engineering has historically been very hostile toward pedestrians and pedestrian rights and how that intersects with race and class,” O’Brien said. “It made me realize that civil engineering, specifically transportation, was a way to study the technical and scientific aspects of engineering while taking into account the people side of engineering as well.”

Now a sophomore in civil engineering double majoring in political science, O’Brien works as an undergraduate research assistant under Nadia Gkritza, professor of civil engineering and agricultural and biological engineering, in the ASPIRE (Advancing Sustainability through Powered Infrastructure for Roadway Electrification) Center. A National Science Foundation-funded Engineering Research Center, ASPIRE’s mission is to improve health and quality of life for everyone by catalyzing sustainable and equitable electrification across the transportation industries.

“Mass transit is viewed differently in the United States than other countries,” O’Brien said. “Unless you live in a large city with a substantial transit system, there’s a perception in the states that transit is only for the poor. The transportation infrastructure, or lack thereof, across the Midwest contributes to a lot of social injustices. I want to understand why many Midwestern communities don’t have this kind of progressive infrastructure and work to implement solutions while addressing the related social justice issues surrounding transit.”

Konstantinos Flaris, a graduate research assistant, serves as O’Brien’s mentor in the ASPIRE Center. The two are working with Gkritza to assess community engagement for a pilot roadway electrification project planned near Purdue’s campus.

“The goal is to design pavement that charges electric vehicles as they drive over it,” O’Brien says. “Part of that project involves how an electric roadway could potentially affect the community. We are in the early stages of identifying the communities in Greater Lafayette that could be impacted by environmental justice issues related to the project and determining the methodologies available to gauge community perception.”

The pilot project, planned for installation along U.S. Route 231, involves placing slabs of magnetizable concrete with embedded coils that produce electromagnetic fields that transmit to an electric vehicle’s receiver. The technology operates similarly to wireless phone chargers built-in to counters and nightstands. Sales of electric vehicles accounted for about 5% of the U.S. market in 2022, so widespread adoption of electrified roadway could be decades away. For O’Brien, that means engineers have time to make sure they get it right.

“We tend to focus on the technical aspects of how the science works but the most important factor is how does the technology impact people’s everyday lives? How does it affect the environment in which it is built?” O’Brien said. “Being able to answer those questions is what’s interesting to me and aligns with my passions in the field.”