News

Mar 13, 2026 - Awarded the Civil Engineering Travel Grant Award. The Civil Engineering Graduate Student Travel Assistance Grants are funded by the Department of Civil Engineering, McMaster University with the objective of fostering scientific exchange, networking with other researchers, and showcasing the talents of McMaster’s graduate students.

Feb 19, 2026 - Awarded the HCAT Civil/Geotechnical Engineering Scholarship 2026! This award recognizes academic and research excellence in geotechnical engineering and/or the heavy construction industry and is granted by the School of Graduate Studies on the recommendation of McMaster’s Department of Civil Engineering.

Feb 19, 2026 - Awarded the Ahmed Ghobarah Scholarship 2026!  This award recognizes academic excellence among international graduate students in Civil Engineering at McMaster University. It is granted by the School of Graduate Studies on the recommendation of the Department Chair.

Dec 17, 2025 – The DFI Educational Trust’s scholarship committee has selected me as one of the two recipients of the Manuel Fine Civil Engineering Scholarship 2025 based on deep foundations career, extra-curricular activities, leadership capabilities, and long term goals.

Nov 23, 2025 - An article titled "Coastal Bridges Climate  Vulnerability Mapping: Network Level Flood Scour Risk Assessment in Nova Scotia" has been published In Proceedings of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering Annual Conference (CSCE) 2024, Volume 14. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 731. Springer, Cham. Link

Oct 6, 2025 - An article titled "Parameterized Fragility Assessment of Scour-Prone Shallow Foundation Bridges Using Surrogate Model" has been accepted for presentation at the 105th Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., USA, January 2026. 

Sept 27, 2025- A new article, "Assessing Disparities in Road Transport Services in Kenya: Geographic Information System and Machine Learning Approach," has been published in Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. (Read here)

June 2, 2025 – Awarded the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) for 2025–2026! The OGS is a merit-based scholarship awarded by the Government of Ontario to support research-focused graduate students. It recognizes academic excellence, research potential, and demonstrated leadership skills.

May 7, 2025- Elected as a Secretary on the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3906, for a one-year tenure from 2025 to 2026.

Feb 18, 2025- Received "The Ahmed Ghobarah Scholarship 2025" based on academic and research excellence in Civil Engineering by the School of Graduate Studies of McMaster University. 

Jan 10, 2025 - My new article titled "A statistical and machine learning framework for measuring the economic impact of reduced travel due to COVID-19 in Maryland" has been published in Transport Research Procedia. It is proceeding of the conference WCTR 2023. (Read here)

Jan 6, 2025 - An article titled "Assessing Disparities in Road Transport Services in Kenya: A GIS and Machine Learning Approach" has been presented at 104th Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., USA.

Sept 27, 2024 - An article titled "Assessing Disparities in Road Transport Services in Kenya: A GIS and Machine Learning Approach" has been accepted for presentation at In 104th Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., USA, January 2025. 

Sept 18, 2024 - An article titled "Resilient roads in challenging terrain: a case study of Siddhartha highway in Nepal" has been published in the journal 'Discover Civil Engineering'. This is a case study to look for the suitability of pavement type on the Siddhartha Highway in Nepal, done in collaboration with researchers from Pokhara University (Nepal).

Sept 17, 2024 - A new article titled "Optimizing modified asphalt binder performance at high and intermediate temperatures using experimental and machine learning approaches" has been published in Construction and Building Materials (IF 7.4). This study was conducted in collaboration with researchers and professors from Georgia Southern University (US) and Teesside University (UK).

June 7, 2024  - Presented my research paper - "Coastal Bridges Climate  Vulnerability Mapping: Network Level Flood Scour Risk Assessment in Nova Scotia" at the Canadian Society for Civil Engineer (CSCE) Annual Conference 2024, Niagara Falls.

June 2, 2024- Awarded a fully funded scholarship by the International Joint Research Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering (ILEE), to attend the ILEE Summer Program 2024 at Tongji University, Shanghai, China from July 14th to July 27th.

May 22, 2024 - Passed my comprehensive exam and now I am officially a PhD candidate at the Department of Civil Engineering, McMaster University!

April 2024- A new research article titled "Coastal Bridge Climate Vulnerability Mapping: Network-Level Flood Scour Risk Assessment in Nova Scotia" has been accepted for presentation at the conference and publication in the proceedings of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) 2024 Annual Conference, June 5-7, 2024.

February 2024 - A new article titled "A Machine Learning Model to Predict Cyberattacks in Connected and Autonomous Vehicles" submitted by Manoj K. Jha, Ph.D. and Rishav Jaiswal from the University of Maryland and McMaster University has been published in the Journal of Computational and Cognitive Engineering . 

December 2023 - Two papers titled "Impact of COVID-19 on Roadway Travel Behavior: Comparative Study of the State of Washington & Maryland, USA" and "A Bi-Layered Machine Learning Model for Travel-Time Prediction along a Congested Section of I-495, USA" presented at the Seventh International Conference of Transportation Research Group of India (CTRG 2023). 

September 2023 - Started PhD at McMaster University with the supervision of Dr. Cancan Yang and Dr. Wael El-Dakhakhni.

June 2023 - Defended my Master's thesis titled 'Impact of COVID-19 on Road Transportation" under the guidance of Dr. Bachu Anil Kumar at the Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Patna!