Rachel Moglen, a Ph.D. candidate in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering at UT Austin has been selected to receive the Scholar Award from the P.E.O Sisterhood.
She is one of 110 doctoral students in the U.S. and Canada selected to receive this $20,000 award and was sponsored by Chapter JI of the P.E.O. Sisterhood in Austin, TX
Moglen holds a B.S. and M.S. from the University of Maryland, College Park in Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, respectively. She is also a NSF INFEWS Fellow. Moglen’s research focuses on infrastructure outages caused by natural and manmade disasters engender loss of economic activity and loss of life.
“In my research, I model the operation of infrastructure systems like power, drinking water, and natural gas, seeking to identify actions to best adapt to, prepare for, and repair from disasters. I apply rigorous mathematical models that prescribe specific resilience policies and actions that improve infrastructure disaster resilience,” said Moglen.
Throughout her doctoral degree, Moglen has worked with professor Ben Leibowicz as her faculty advisor. She has also collaborated with researchers from Sandia National Labs, Victoria University (Australia), the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Southern California.
The P.E.O. Scholar Awards were established in 1991 to provide substantial merit-based awards for women of the United States and Canada who are pursuing a doctoral-level degree at an accredited college or university. Scholar Awards recipients are a select group of women chosen for their high level of academic achievement and their potential for having a positive impact on society.
The P.E.O. Sisterhood, founded January 21, 1869, at Iowa Wesleyan College, Mount Pleasant, Iowa, is a philanthropic educational organization dedicated to supporting higher education for women. There are approximately 6,000 local chapters in the United States and Canada with nearly a quarter of a million active members.
