(orchestral music)

- [Mason] Hello, and thank you for tuning

in to "Connections and Directions,"

our University of Michigan

civil and environmental
engineering podcast.

My name is Mason Hinawi,

and I am the CEE marketing
communications specialist

and host of this series.

During our podcast, we'll
be featuring members

of our CEE community

and how their work reflects our mission

of engineers in service to society.

We will be highlighting
our strategic directions

and our commitment to diversity,
equity, and inclusion.

CEE's five strategic directions

are human habitat experience,
shaping resource flows,

adaptation, automation,
and data-driven innovation.

I'm here today with Jiaqi Li,

incoming assistant professor,
starting in January of 2025.

Welcome, Jiaqi, to our podcast.

- [Jiaqi] Thank you,
Mason, for hosting me.

It's a great opportunity
to talk about my research

and other teaching and
other activity today.

- [Mason] Fantastic, can you share

with our listeners some details
about your research areas

and how they align with
our strategic directions

and our mission of engineers
in service to society?

- [Jiaqi] Sure, so my,
the core of my research

is about the chemistry,
multiscale structure,

and the mechanical property
of cement and concrete

and their environmental impacts
such as carbon footprint.

But also I expand my research

to carbon capture utilization

and storage for multiple
industrial applications

such as construction materials,

but also for energy conversion.

I also have research
involved into the generation

of renewable fuels, such as
hydrogen, biofuel, and others.

These research are connected toward

with all these different areas,

so that I aim to use different approaches

to produce a low carbon or
carbon negative materials

for different applications

to enable carbon capture
utilization storage,

which are currently very expensive,

but I hope through these approaches,

I can potentially lower the cost,

scale it up, so that it can
make some real world impacts

for our community.

- [Mason] How did you become interested

in your area of research and
was there a pivotal moment

that significantly influenced
your professional path

in the field of civil and
environmental engineering?

- [Jiaqi] Great question.

So actually at the beginning
of my, not my career,

at the beginning of my undergrad study,

I was quite interested in architecture.

Then I feel like I can
make more real world impact

in civil engineering,

and so I start to explore
more opportunities.

I try different type of disciplines

in CVO engineering, such as
like building information,

modeling, structural engineering analysis.

But then I feel I'm more into,

I was more into construction materials.

At that moment, it was specifically
for cement and concrete.

And then I feel quite
interested in the innovation

in the materials because we
can try different formulations,

try different approaches to design

high performance concrete or
other construction materials,

or we can potentially lower

the environmental
impacts of the materials.

So that was the moment.

And then because of the industry

aiming for more sustainable materials

from different resources,

for different applications,

but also utilize the different resources

from different industries, I
realize there's a missing gap

between the renewable energy industry

and the construction industry.

So it's, so that was the moment

I decide to connect the dots.

So I filled the gaps.

So I aim to make the connection

between the renewable energy industry

and the construction industry.

- [Mason] How do you plan
to incorporate principles

of diversity, equity, and inclusion

in your teaching, research, and service

to ensure an inclusive
and supportive environment

for all members of the CEE community?

- [Jiaqi] So this can be in two aspects.

One is for teaching and service.

It's more about providing
diverse opportunities

for students with these
different type of backgrounds.

For example, for teaching materials,

students may have
different learning styles.

So I would provide both the written notes

and also provide videos so that students

may have with different learning styles

or they wanna speed up
the video, they can do it.

And also I will provide like office hours

at different times.

So students may have different lifestyles,

like they are morning
person or a night person,

so that they can all fit their schedule

for there are also connections

between research and diversity,

equity, and inclusion, and beyond.

For example, for my research,

the production of many of these materials

or the generation of
these byproduct or wastes,

they can be hazardous

or they have certain negative
environmental impact,

which can be detrimental
to our communities.

So I aim to utilize or, say, recycle

or upcycle these waste or byproducts,

so that it can be used to produce

like low carbon cement concrete

or other materials to
benefit our communities.

For example, rebuild our community,

for example, rebuild a falling
infrastructure of the nation.

According to American
Society of Civil Engineers,

our infrastructure score is like C minus,

which means mediocre,
in the past four years.

- [Mason] How do you
intend to involve students

in your research and what
opportunities do you foresee

for mentoring and developing
the next generation

of CEE professionals?

What courses do you aspire to teach here?

- [Jiaqi] So the teaching
materials involves the two parts.

One is a classic principles

of the engineering analysis, formulation,

chemistry, physics of
the materials' properties

such as a course about construction
and building materials.

So these course really involve the steel,

concrete, timber, and
other type of materials.

They are classic.

They have been used for
decades or hundreds of years,

but they're also development
of new materials.

So I like to teach the students

to learn the next
generation of the materials,

how we can design it, what's
the principle behind it.

For these kind of teaching,

that can encourage a student
to get involved into research.

And the research is a great opportunity

to refresh their memories
about the coursework.

And also they can reinforce their learning

about the course materials.

That can be interesting
for them to learn more

and learn deeper into
the course materials.

For include the students into my research,

I aim to encourage both undergrad students

and the graduate student to get involved.

It can be in wet lab, mixing and concrete

or other materials to try to evaluate

their performance,
reactivity, the chemistry,

or multi-scale structure of the materials.

Or it can be in dry lab

to estimate or analyze
the environmental impacts

of the production of the materials

or the generation of the fuels,

such as the carbon footprint
or other environmental impacts.

That's other, that's of the
great interest of the industry.

- [Mason] Just going off that,

do you know some of the main things

you want to include in your lab space

that you're excited about bringing?

- [Jiaqi] I aim to introduce
several new concepts

about the research in developing

like carbon negative materials
such as cement and concrete.

For example, using
electrochemistry that can,

which can be powered by
renewable electricities

to produce a carbon negative cement.

The other area of interest is to involve

some nature inspired research approaches,

such as microalgae that can produce

a carbon negative
additive that can be used

to store carbon into cement
and concrete for long term.

- [Mason] So far in your career,

what accomplishments
are you most proud of,

and how do these
successes shape your goals

as a new faculty member here at CEE?

- [Jiaqi] Sure, that can be two parts.

One is I introduce electrochemistry

to produce carbon negative cement.

That can be both scalable and low cost,

which is important for
the construction industry,

which is very cost sensitive.

The other part is to make the connection

between construction materials
and other type of materials.

For example, there is
a significant interest

in renewable energies underground.

Probably it's new to the
civil engineering areas,

some it's called all orange.

Orange hydrogen is a clean hydrogen,

which is generated naturally underground.

So actually this come from
some oxidation of the silicate,

which is quite similar to the chemistry

of cement and concrete.

So the knowledge and skill
learned from the research

of cement concrete in civil engineering,

can be also transferred
to the characterization

of these geo materials,
which are also very relevant

to civil engineering,
for example, in geotech.

- [Mason] Have you seen
any of your research

be implemented in private sector building

or anything like that?

- [Jiaqi] That's a good question.

So right now I have several projects

with maybe five or even
more industry partners.

So we are developing different protocols

to help the industry
to quantify the carbon

that which is stored or permanently stored

in cement and concrete.

And then we are also developing
these bio-based microalgae,

bio-based cement,

which also have a few industry partners.

So my research is aimed

to use some novel approaches eventually,

and hopefully, that can be scaled up.

So certainly the involvement

with the industry partners
are very important

and hear their feedbacks

and their understanding
in the private sectors.

- [Mason] Well, thank you so much

for speaking with me today.

We're looking forward to
having you join our department

in January of 2025.

Thank you, Jiaqi.

- [Jiaqi] Thank you, Mason.

I look forward to it.

(bright music)

- [Mason] Thank you for listening

to our podcast conversation.

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about CEE at Michigan,

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