This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) award supports the development of an interdisciplinary graduate training program in engineering for cultural heritage diagnostics. Forensic engineering, the investigation of failures and failure mechanisms, is uniquely suited yet rarely used to assess the damage to artifacts of cultural heritage, including ancient monuments, historic buildings and paintings, from the ravages of time, pollution, natural disasters and decay.
This IGERT, based at the University of California at San Diego, trains graduate students to develop diagnostic methodologies and analytical models that will be deployed and tested on a) Renaissance art works and historic structures in Florence, Italy, and b) archaeological sites and artifacts in Jordan and Israel. Trainees learn and develop new state-of-the-art methods for the long-term "health monitoring" of cultural artifacts, including non-destructive testing, cyberinfrastructure and engineering analysis. Using a team-based approach, trainees will create an integrated platform for diagnostic and predictive modeling, including multispectral imaging, simulation, data synthesis and visual analytics. Students are advised by three co-mentors, one from the student's primary discipline and two from other disciplines. Substantial field research abroad will prepare them for careers in international science and engineering, and the tools and methodologies developed for cultural heritage can be applied more broadly to the analysis of degraded or obsolete infrastructure, such as public buildings, roads and bridges, as well as almost any other engineered component or system.
IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.
