June 29, 2022
Civil engineering faculty member selected for NSF Game Changer Academies
H. M. "Husain" Aziz, assistant professor of civil engineering, has been inducted as a panel fellow in the 2022 cohort of the National Science Foundation Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation's Game Changer Academies.
NSF merit review process helps the agency identify high-quality proposals that merit NSF funding. It trains experts who participate in NSF merit review through review panels. The program aims to improve group dynamics during panel discussions, increase awareness of bias and identity, and enhance understanding of high-risk, high-reward ideas. Once trained, panel fellows will bring enhanced skills and awareness when they participate in panel discussions during NSF merit review. The Game Changer Academies grew out of an NSF-funded pilot project aimed at increasing reviewer risk tolerance. Aziz was selected from a large pool of applicants in part based on his academic career success and his commitment to ensuring NSF’s gold standard of peer review process. Election to the academies followed his full participation in all aspects of the program — six main sessions, seven discussion group sessions, and individual preparation.
Aziz currently leads the INC3S — INtelligent Computing for Safe, Smart, and Sustainable — Lab embedded in CE’s Smart Cities initiative sponsored by BHC, Overland Park. The laboratory has the core focus on modeling, simulation and control of mixed traffic of human and autonomous vehicles in smart cities, shared-used mobility modeling and optimization, and resilient transportation systems.