Thuy Nguyen: Improving Mobile Technology in Construction Practice
In addition to her research, student Thuy Nguyen helps the construction industry identify research projects with possible breakthrough potential.
Instructors often struggle with existing methods for teaching students the spatial elements of construction. Due to safety and time constraints, most of this learning occurs offsite. Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Ph.D. student Thuy Nguyen seeks to help radically change construction practice by improving the design of mobile tools used in technology education. Her research will not only help increase students’ technical learning but will also help speed practicing engineers' adoption of automated tools, ideally increasing safety, performance, and productivity.
Nguyen, her academic advisor , Assistant Professor William O’Brien, and several other faculty and graduate students have been working on a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project (“Educating a Competitive, Cyberinfrastructure Savvy Engineering and Construction Workforce”). For the project, pilot “learning modules” have been developed, incorporating tablet PCs and sensors that are used to simulate a construction site. The sensor modes mimic the deployment of pallets around the jobsite so that students can see if materials are in place for their scheduled use. For her part of the project, Nguyen studies the learning styles and technology skills of construction engineering students and workers, and she considers the implications of these aspects in the design of technology-enhanced teaching tools.
For the NSF-funded research project, faculty and students use tablet PCs and sensors to simulate a construction site.
A portion of Nguyen’s dissertation, the innovative learning model “Expanding the Classroom: Mobile Technologies for Construction Education,” has already received recognition. O’Brien, Nguyen and co-collaborators Christine Julien, Kathy Schmidt, Sanem Kabadayi, and Randall Hennig received a Gold Award for Innovative Learning Environment at the 2008 Innovative Instructional Technology Awards Program (IITAP) Showcase. The IITAP is the UT provost’s program to encourage, support, and reward innovation in using instructional technology.
In addition to her research, Nguyen also works for the Construction Industry Institute as a research assistant to the Breakthrough Strategy Committee, which helps identify research topics that are believed to have breakthrough potential for the construction industry. This opportunity has given her the chance work with many renowned academics as well as senior executives in the construction industry.
Nguyen was born and raised in Vietnam until the age of 19. She received her bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Adelaide, Australia. She knew that she wanted to see more of the world before finally going home for good, so she began looking into finishing her education in the United States.
“Knowing that the Civil Engineering program at UT-Austin was one of the best in the country,” she says, “I applied and was lucky enough to get admitted.”
Shortly after her acceptance to our program, Nguyen received a fellowship from the Vietnam Education Foundation that covered her first two years of graduate study in the United States. It did not take her long to settle into Austin and the CAEE department.
“I like the fact that Austin is green and hilly and has lots of watercourses,” she says. “The lifestyle here is young, urban, vibrant, and very accepting of individual differences.”
Nguyen says one of the best things about the CAEE department is its academic and cultural diversity. “There are many classes to choose from, and there are lots of fellow students from all over the world to learn from, make friends with, and have fun with”, she explains. “Another wonderful thing here is the availability of great learning resources: computer labs, libraries, and electronic scientific databases.”
After graduation, she plans to spend a few years working overseas to gain some experience before going back to Vietnam. She is eager to work outside of the academic environment, since that would be new to her, and to explore project management, human resource management, or education. Nguyen is also interested in possibly working for one of the NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in a third world country, as she finds their work meaningful and innovative. And, sometime in the future, she would like to teach at a university as an adjunct professor because “that would be my ideal job.”