Ashray Saxena, a doctoral student in civil engineering, has been honored as one of the ten 2023 New Faces of Civil Engineering Professionals by ASCE. This award is given to highly influential engineers under 30 years old and within the first decade of their careers.

As a research assistant with Dr. Jorge Zornberg, Saxena is working to evaluate the mitigation of crack propagation in geosynthetic reinforced asphalt pavements using cross-shear test using digital image correlations. Additionally, he is working on developing geosynthetic reinforced asphalt layers which can be milled using recycled materials and cost-effective methods.

A highly-involved member of the campus community, Saxena acts as DEI and Peer Mentorship chair in the department. He has received a Longhorn Impact fellowship to support businesses of UT Austin, and was previously a judge for the Austin Science Education Foundation.

Saxena is the first student to receive the professional-level award. He, along with the other recipients, will be honored at the 2023 ASCE Convention in Chicago in October.

Read more about Ashray Saxena on ASCE’s website.