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Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering

CCEE’s Elias Zauscher wins Undergraduate Student Technical Paper Competition

June 7, 2023
Elias Zauscher and Emily Berglund at World Environmental and Water Resources Congress

Recent CCEE grad Elias Zauscher (BSENE 2023) won first place in the Undergraduate Student Technical Paper Competition at the World Environmental and Water Resources Congress, in Henderson, Nevada, in May. The project is titled “Modeling Water Use Changes in a Hybrid Water System with Micro-Trading.”

Zauscher, who also recently was selected for the Spring 2023 Richard L. Blanton Outstanding Capstone Award from NC State’s University Honors Program for this research, worked with Professor Emily Berglund to study water use in Australian homes, using an Agent-Based Model to simulate water trading between the homes to find the effect that hybrid water sources (rain water, gray water, bore water) have on municipal water and groundwater. Results of this study demonstrate the effectiveness of micro-trading as a new water saving strategy.

Zauscher plans on continuing his education at CCEE, pursuing a Ph.D. in civil engineering with a concentration in computing and systems and a special focus on water resources management. He will continue to do research under Berglund in her Sociotechnical Systems Analysis Laboratory.