{"id":137799,"date":"2021-03-24T14:48:42","date_gmt":"2021-03-25T00:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=137799"},"modified":"2021-07-20T16:53:24","modified_gmt":"2021-07-21T02:53:24","slug":"phd-student-receives-saudi-scholarship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2021\/03\/24\/phd-student-receives-saudi-scholarship\/","title":{"rendered":"<abbr title=\"Doctor of Philosophy\">PhD<\/abbr> student preparing for self-driving cars receives Saudi scholarship"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><figure id=\"attachment_137806\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-137806\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/manoa-engineering-abdulrahman-alghamdi.jpg\" alt=\"headshot of Abdulrahman Alghamdi\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"size-full wp-image-137806\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/manoa-engineering-abdulrahman-alghamdi.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/manoa-engineering-abdulrahman-alghamdi-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/manoa-engineering-abdulrahman-alghamdi-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-137806\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Abdulrahman <abbr>A<\/abbr>. Alghamdi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cee.hawaii.edu\/\">Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering<\/a> (<abbr>CEE<\/abbr>) <abbr>PhD<\/abbr> student received a major international honor. <strong>Abdulrahman <abbr>A<\/abbr>. Alghamdi<\/strong> is the recipient of a scholarship from Saudi Arabia so impactful he said upon receiving it he felt like &ldquo;life has somehow just begun.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia awards the scholarship to Saudi students majoring in medicine, engineering or qualitative scientific research who have successfully completed their first semester of a <abbr>PhD<\/abbr> program with a 4.0 <abbr title=\"Grade Point Average\">GPA<\/abbr>. The scholarship is managed and administered by the Cultural Mission of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, and includes the following benefits:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Full tuition and other relevant required academic fees from spring 2021 to spring 2023<\/li>\n<li>Full and comprehensive health insurance (medical and dental) with no deductible to the student and their family<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&ldquo;There were no words to express my feelings,&rdquo; Alghamdi said. &ldquo;On that day, I woke up on a call saying that I got the scholarship; I couldn&#8217;t believe it! I felt somewhat chosen, and there was a huge feeling of relief. I felt the financial issues no longer matter, especially that my wife and my son live with me. The scholarship gave me a boost to morale and confidence in my ability to work toward a better future.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<h2><abbr>PhD<\/abbr> research focuses on self-driving cars<\/h2>\n<p>Alghamdi\u2019s <abbr>PhD<\/abbr> research is focused on Connected Automated Shared Electrified (<abbr>CASE<\/abbr>) infrastructure planning to prepare for a future of self-driving vehicles, under the guidance of Associate Professor <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cee.hawaii.edu\/faculty-staff-main-2\/2-faculty\/zhang\/\"><strong>Guohui Zhang<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Abdulrahman is an excellent <abbr>PhD<\/abbr> student who is passionate about in-depth research in the field of <abbr>CASE<\/abbr> vehicle-enabled transportation infrastructure planning,&rdquo; Zhang said. &ldquo;His dedication, enthusiasm and commitment substantially distinguish him from his peers. His preliminary studies and research findings have greatly enhanced our current understanding of <abbr>CASE<\/abbr> transportation system deployment and will significantly contribute to the state of the art to improve our daily transportation operation efficiency and safety performance in the near future.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Alghamdi is also president of the <abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> student chapter of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ite.org\/about-ite\/student-chapters\/\">Institute of Transportation Engineers<\/a>. He earned his bachelor of science in civil engineering (fall 2018) and master of science in civil engineering (summer 2020) from <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa. He says the university is &ldquo;designed around the realms of positivity, happiness, engagement and well-being.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I came in 2017 as a transfer student. In the beginning, I faced many problems that just seemed impossible at first. Still, I found the faculty, from the <abbr>CEE<\/abbr> department&#8217;s chair to staff members, make a great effort to connect with us and spend the vast majority of their time teaching and interacting with us,&rdquo; Alghamdi said. &ldquo;When I started my master&#8217;s, I found the same thing and more where I received several constructive criticisms over the duration of my degree. I was capable of taking constructive criticism and translating that into action.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Alghamdi&#8217;s scholarship is a significant stepping stone for <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eng.hawaii.edu\/\">College of Engineering<\/a> because the Middle East&#8217;s future engineering market has vast potential in developing urban infrastructures&#8212;especially those related to basic natural resources, such as food, energy and water&#8212;which are expected to be socioeconomically sustainable.<\/p>\n<p>This research and award are examples of <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s goals of <a href=\"https:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/manoa-2025-strategic-plan.pdf#page=25\">Excellence in Research: Advancing the Research and Creative Work Enterprise<\/a> (<span class=\"small-text\"><abbr title=\"Portable Document Format\">PDF<\/abbr><\/span>) and <a href=\"https:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/manoa-2025-strategic-plan.pdf#page=20\">Enhancing Student Success<\/a> (<span class=\"small-text\"><abbr title=\"Portable Document Format\">PDF<\/abbr><\/span>), two of four goals identified in the <a href=\"https:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/manoa-2025-strategic-plan.pdf\">2015&#8211;25 Â鶹´«Ã½<\/a> (<span class=\"small-text\"><abbr title=\"Portable Document Format\">PDF<\/abbr><\/span>), updated in December 2020.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;By <em>Marc Arakaki<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The scholarship covers tuition, academic fees and comprehensive health insurance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[1477,179,182,1480,1466,1467,1363,660,9],"class_list":["post-137799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-civil-environmental-construction-engineering","tag-college-of-engineering","tag-engineering","tag-manoa-academic-innovation-engaged-learning","tag-manoa-enhancing-student-success","tag-manoa-excellence-in-research","tag-manoa-research","tag-student-recognition","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137799"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137812,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137799\/revisions\/137812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}