CCEE associate professor Dr. Brina Montoya received a Boosting Research Ideas for Transformative and Equitable Advances in Engineering (BRITE) Pivot Grant from the National Science Foundation that will allow her to pursue additional training on cutting-edge scientific methods related to her research on biological methods to improve the stability of soils. 

The grants are extremely competitive and are intended to “enable researchers to quickly adapt to the fast-moving pace of research and create new knowledge and research products in their field by infusing new concepts from a different discipline or sub-field.”

“I am thrilled to receive this grant. The BRITE Pivot Grant will open up new areas of research for me and my group and, in turn, expand the impact our work can make.”

Dr. Brina Montoya, CCEE associate professor

Montoya’s research objective is to understand the complex microbial communities in the soil supporting civil infrastructure so that researchers can harness their processes to improve the soil behavior such as make it stronger. 

“This grant will provide opportunity and resources for me and my research group to learn state of the art techniques studying soil microbial ecology,” Montoya said.

The full award abstract can be found here.​​

Montoya’s research interests involve developing bio-mediated stabilization approaches to improve the sustainability and resiliency of infrastructure. Specifically, her research program has focused on exploring the performance of microbial induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) cemented geomaterials, including: 1) shear response and volumetric behavior, 2) erosion behavior, and 3) physico-chemical influences of MICP. Read more about Montoya’s research here.