CCEE graduate student Jessica Gorski was among six outstanding NC State engineering graduate students who were recognized for their academic achievements, research, leadership and service through the 2022-23 College of Engineering (COE) Graduate Programs Awards.

To be eligible, graduate students had to submit a resume and receive a nomination from a faculty member. Twenty-five nominations were submitted in total.

Doctoral students and master’s students are eligible to receive the Scholar of the Year Award in the following categories: citizenship and service, leadership, research and scholarly achievement.

Gorski received the CoE Master Scholar of the Year in the research category. Her research area is coastal engineering, with a focus on predicting storm-driven erosion of beaches and dunes. She received her M.S. degree this spring. She was nominated by Associate Professor Casey Dietrich, who said “she has contributed much more to research at NC State than the typical M.S. student.”

Gorski’s research sought to improve process-based forecasting of coastal erosion during storms, which is a challenging task as erosion happens at small scales but forecasts need to cover long stretches of the coast to be useful to the affected communities. She used her framework to predict erosion during Hurricane Ian, and her predictions compared favorably to empirical predictions produced by professional forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  and United States Geological Survey. She is also an advocate for broadening participation of underrepresented groups in engineering.

 

A version of this story was first published on College of Engineering News.