U of A civil engineering students recently demonstrated outstanding skill and dedication at two major regional conferences, earning top awards.

Held this year in Little Rock, the American Society of Civil Engineers Mid-South Student Symposium brought together civil engineering students from across the region for a series of hands-on competitions and professional development opportunities.

Thanks to the support of generous sponsors, the U of A sent a strong team of 22 students, who placed in several events:

• 1st Place — Balsa Wood Bridge Competition

• 1st Place — Student Meade Paper Competition

• 2nd Place — Sustainable Solutions Competition

• 3rd Place — Concrete Canoe Competition

The team's concrete canoe, "Ozark Horizon," was a highlight of the event. Weighing 450 pounds, the canoe was a product of months of detailed design and construction. Although it was damaged during transport and couldn't be used in the racing portion of the competition, the quality of the canoe's design and the students' comprehensive presentation resulted in a third-place finish.

The Mid-South Student Symposium is a valuable platform for students to apply their academic knowledge, collaborate with peers and engage with industry professionals.

Meanwhile, civil engineering students also excelled at the Institute of Transportation Engineers Joint Southern and Missouri Valley District Annual Meeting, held in Memphis.

U of A students earned top recognition in multiple student competitions:

• Geoffery Agorku captured first place in the Graduate Student Poster Competition with his project, "Predicting Barge Presence and Barge Quantity for Inland Waterway Vessels using Machine Learning." Agorku also earned third place in the Student Paper Competition for his work titled "Predicting Barge Presence and Quantity on Inland Waterway Vessel Tracking Data: A Machine Leearning Approach."

• Adedolapo Ogungbire also presented a poster titled "Exploring Online Delivery Patterns and Returns in the United States: Insights From The 2022 National Househeld Travel Survey."
• Sagar Silwal and Leire Ashqui Lopez both received Honorable Mention awards for their posters titled "Feasibility of Vehicle Probe Data for Origin-Destination Studies: A Literature Review" and "Economic Impacts Due to a Bridge Closure: A Case Study of the Mississippi River Bridges in Arkansas," respectively.

In addition, the U of A Traffic Bowl team, featuring Geoffery Agorku, Sagar Silwal, Adedolapo Ogungbire and Leire Ashqui Lopez, earned an impressive second-place finish competing against teams from the University of Kansas, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, Iowa State University and the University of Nebraska.

These strong performances highlight the university's commitment to preparing students for leadership roles in the transportation and civil engineering industries.