GAEC Lab Ph.D. student receives $25k in funding

Ph.D. Student Rebecca Composto recently received a combined $25k in funding from a grant and scholarship. Rebecca’s research focuses on flooding and emergency preparedness in urban areas. In her first Ph.D. paper, she created a flood extent map of southeastern Pennsylvania for Hurricane Ida.

Rebecca was awarded $10,000 from the NC Space Grant for her research. 22 graduate students from across North Carolina were selected to become 2024-2025 graduate research fellows and conduct research that benefits NASA. The funding was awarded for a research project to quantify hurricane flood extents and depths in urban areas around North Carolina.

She was also awarded $15,000 from the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF). Rebecca was selected for the Stu Shea USGIF Endowed Scholarship, which is awarded annually to a Ph.D. student in geospatial studies.

Rebecca plans to use this funding to continue studying floods in urban areas and travel to conferences, including the up-coming American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference in December 2024.