UNT Department of Mechanical Engineering undergraduate student Ha Tran was awarded Best Presenter, or first prize, in the heavy civil category at TEXO Foundation & Associated Schools of Construction Region V Student Competition. Tran, who is majoring in construction engineering technology and minoring in business foundations, has been working with Professor Cheng Yu and his research team.

“It was my great pleasure and great experience that I had been working on two main research projects with Dr. Cheng Yu and his research assistant team during the past two years,” said Tran. “I love our team a lot; they are greatly supportive, intelligent, and innovative.”

With her great passion for construction and technology, Tran is focusing on improving the Level of Development (LOD) specification for cold-formed steel framing construction.

“The LOD specification is a reference that enables practitioners in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry to specify and articulate with a high level of clarity on content and reliability of Building Information Modeling in project management,” Tran said.

She also received the second prize with a presentation on LOD research at the Collegiate Competition of Women Engineers Local Denver 2019 and recently presented the research on the "Clip Angle Design Phase III" at the Cold-Formed Steel Research Consortium Student Conference in May 2020.