Congratulations to faculty members in the Lyles College of Engineering and College of Science of Mathematics for their recent grant award of $50,000 from the California State University Chancellor’s Office for their collaborative research proposal "Investigating the effect of microbial activity on hydraulic conductivity and mechanical behavior of soils."

Civil engineering assistant professor Dr. Lalita Oka will serve as the lead principal investigator, and assistant professor of biology, Dr. Tricia Van Laar will serve as the co-principal investigator. Associate professor Dr. Lubo Liu and lecturer of mathematics, Dr. Ganesh Oka will also collaborate as co-principal investigators.

“We are excited to be working as an interdisciplinary faculty team alongside at least six students from both colleges on this project with an aim to get preliminary data so that we can submit an external grant proposal to funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation,” Dr. Lalita Oka said.

The research team’s objectives are:

1. To establish an empirical soil mechanics-based model for estimating subsidence
2. To quantify the impact of a selected fertilizer on bacterial community composition and abundance in the representative soil sample
3. To quantify the impact of a selected fertilizer (with or without bacterial activity) on hydrological properties and nutrient transport
4. To validate the mathematical model to predict the changes in the hydraulic conductivity and porosity of the soil
5. To establish a new empirical model for geomechanical behavior of soil by combining the results from the objectives mentioned above

“Over the period of approximately one year, we plan to spend a substantial (more than 80%) portion of this grant on providing stipend and travel support for the students and faculty working on the research and the rest will be spent on laboratory supplies and materials,” Lalita Oka said. “This will be a wonderful opportunity for students to not only get involved in interdisciplinary research, but also they have an option of either getting stipend or getting independent study course credit.”