主要研究 今天

Editor's Note: This is the first in a series featuring 主要研究 faculty telling their stories in their own words.

艾琳·贝尔，土木与环境工程副教授

"我是一个乡村铁匠的孙女. 我的祖父, 出生在意大利托斯卡纳山区, had a small forge and learned to weld in a German workcamp in Berlin during 世界 War II. 当俄国军队逼近解放集中营时, 德国卫兵走了，意大利士兵走回家. But there wasn’t anything left for them in Italy — it’s like it is for so many refugees in Europe now — so they came to the United States, 他开始找一份制铁工人的工作.

My father was a steel fabricator and started Santini Brothers Iron Works in Medford, 麻萨诸塞州, in 1969. 所以当大多数孩子放学后在当地的杂货店打工时, 我在铁厂工作，或者我们称之为“车间”. I could read structural plans and selected the steel elements for bidding.

我14岁的时候，父亲带我去看棕熊队的比赛. 我是一名高二学生. We went to dinner at a small restaurant in the North End before the game. During dinner,  Dad asked me what I was thinking about for college and a career. I knew that I liked math and science but wasn’t sure what I wanted to be when I 'grew up.’他说，‘你为什么不做一名工程师呢?我问他们是做什么的. The restaurant had exposed timbers, and he pointed to one and said, 'See that beam?' And then he told me engineers figured out how many beams were needed in a building, 它们需要多长时间, 他们能承受多少重量.

The Bruins game was in the old Boston Garden with exposed steel framing, and I spent most of the time looking up at the steel instead of watching the game. I was so fascinated that you could use math and science to do these things. 对我来说就是这样.

我去了佐治亚理工学院，主修土木工程. My family was particularly provincial — the idea that I was considering school outside of 麻萨诸塞州 was a challenge, 但格鲁吉亚? Although my family, especially my mother, didn’t like the idea, I never felt anything but supported. 我父亲是个守旧的人, 但他和我妈妈总是告诉我，我可以做任何我想做的事, 如果我努力的话.

Once when I was home for break, I went over to Tufts and was looking at the job posting boards. Masoud Sanayei教授, 土木工程部结构组组长, 问我是否需要帮助. I said I was interested in graduate school because I was embarrassed to be caught looking at job postings since I was not a student there. He told me about a research project he was doing monitoring bridge structure health and said he had an opening for a graduate research assistant, 它可以支付我的学费和津贴. I loved the idea of using sensor data collected from a bridge to determine its 'health' — how it was feeling. I went home and started my application for graduate school at Tufts right then — something that was not even on the radar a few days prior. 

最后我继续攻读博士学位.D. I was interested in the bridge work but I always thought I would one day take over Santini Brothers. 在完成我的课程后，我获得了博士学位.D. qualifying exam and I passed and soon after got a job as a structural engineer. I was working designing buildings during the day and doing  doctoral research on bridges at night. When it was time to complete my dissertation and prepare for graduation, Sanayei教授鼓励我申请一个学术职位. 他说，‘如果你不这样做，学术界就会错过.“主要研究有一个空缺，我是最后一个申请的人."

那是在2003年. 从那时起，贝尔, 她的系主任是谁, has been involved with the Living Bridge project that is using the Memorial Bridge that spans the Piscataqua River Bridge in Portsmouth, 新汉普郡, 收集诸如结构性能之类的信息, 风的模式, 潮流, 水浊度和鱼类洄游模式. 她还继续教书，她说:“我很高兴这是我的工作. 我很高兴我每天都能这样做.”