Kenneth Loh an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Davis. The award will facilitate Loh’s research efforts at the National Taiwan University in Taipei City, Taiwan.

The recent recipient of an NSF CAREER award, Loh attended Johns Hopkins University for his B.S. in civil engineering. He went on to the University of Michigan, where earned a masters in materials science & engineering and in civil engineering, and a Ph.D. in civil engineering. Loh joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Davis in 2008.

With the support of the Fulbright scholarship, Loh will work with researchers at National Taiwan University to improve bridge scour understanding with the objective of preventing scour-induced bridge collapses. Bridge scour, or the erosion of earth at bridge foundations by flowing water, is already a leading cause of bridge failures worldwide. This study will characterize and validate a new sensing system that can measure 3D scour hole evolution in space and time. Data from large-scale testing performed at National Taiwan University will be used to improve/update fluid-structure models for evaluating bridge foundation degradation. Model results and assessments of current design practices will be used to improve future design codes in the U.S. and Taiwan.