Faculty
Dr. Abigail L. Beck, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor
Email albeck2 [at] uh.edu
Education
Ph.D. in Civil Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2024
M.S. in Civil Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, 2020
B.S. in Civil Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 2019
Professional Experience
Starting September 2025: Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Houston
Jan 2025 – Present: Research Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Houston
2019 – 2024: Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Awards & Honors
Student Best Poster Award, Natural Hazards Summit, 2024
National Science Foundation Travel Award, Natural Hazards Summit, 2024
CERRA Student Recognition Award at ICASP14, 2023
Next Prof Nexus, selected participant, 2023
Mavis Future Faculty Fellowship, 2023-2024
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, 2020-2023
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Graduate College Conference Presentation Award, 2023
Student Best Paper Award ICOSSAR 2021-2022, 2022
CEE Structural Engineering Conference Fellowship, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2020
John W. Page Scholarship/Fellowship, 2019-2020
Susan Douds Goertz & Jack L. Goertz Fellowship, 2019-2020
University of Texas PEERS Poster Competition, 3rd Place, GLUE Division, 2018
College Scholar, Cockrell School of Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 2016-2019
Research Interests
Probabilistic infrastructure component social impact criticality analysis for equity-based decision support
Quantification of post-disaster social impact due to nodal infrastructure failures by the connection of infrastructure and social systems
Implementation of disaster recovery field study for community infrastructure outage impact and equity modeling
Community contextualized hazard mitigation decision-support derived from community stakeholder engagement processes
Presentations
- Beck, A.L., Cha, E.J., Shaffer, E. & Paquette, L. “Cookout Community - An Infrastructure Decision-Making Game Development”. Playful By Design Fall Symposium Panel Presentation Champaign-Urbana, IL, November, 2023.
- Beck, A.L. & Cha, E.J. “Probabilistic Quantification of Infrastructure Node’s Disaster Social Impact,” Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Structural Safety and Reliability (ICOSSAR 2021/22) Shanghai, China, September 2022. [Student Best Paper Award]
- Beck, A.L., Talebiyan, H., Cha, E.J., & Duenas-Osorio, L., “Comparative Retrofit Prioritization Schemes for Electric Power Networks: Application to the Community in Seaside, OR,” Proceedings of the International Symposium on Reliability Engineering and Risk Management (ISRERM), Hanover, Germany, September 2022.
- Beck, A.L. & Cha, E.J. “Probabilistic Socioeconomic Impact Model for Critical Infrastructure Node Identification,” ASCE Lifelines Conference, Los Angeles, CA. February 2022.
- Beck, A.L. & Read, R. “Cultivating Community and Learning from Failure,” Engineers Without Borders (EWB) National Conference, San Francisco, CA. November 2018.
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
- Beck, A.L. & Cha, E.J. (2022). Probabilistic Disaster Social Impact Assessment of Infrastructure System Nodes. Structure and Infrastructure Engineering, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/15732479.2022.2097268.
- Beck, A.L., Talebiyan, H., Cha, E.J., & Duenas-Osorio, L. (2023) Socially-Aware Retrofit Prioritization for Utility Networks: Integrating Network Performance and Social Impact Considerations. Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure (Submitted Nov. 2023; Submission ID: 232642574)
Peer-Reviewed Conference Papers / Extended Abstracts
- Beck, A.L., Talebiyan, H., Cha, E.J., & Duenas-Osorio, L., “Comparative Retrofit Prioritization Schemes for Electric Power Networks: Application to the Community in Seaside, OR,” In M. Beer, E. Zio, K.K Phoon, B. Ayyub, J. Behrensdorf (Eds.), The 8th International Symposium on Reliability Engineering and Risk Management (ISRERM) Hanover, Germany, September 2022 (pp. 592-599). Research Publishing, Singapore. doi: 10.3850/978-981-18-5184-1_MS-18-096-cd.
- Beck, A.L. & Cha, E.J., “Probabilistic Quantification of Infrastructure Node’s Disaster Social Impact,” Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Structural Safety and Reliability (ICOSSAR 2021/22) Shanghai, China, September 2022. [Student Best Paper Award]