SFPE Foundation Announces Seven Recipients of Annual Awards

Professor Beth Weckman, P.Eng, University of Waterloo, Canada, presented the prestigious Arthur B. Guise Medal, endowed by R. Keith Guise. Professor Weckman has been a strong advocate for advancing fire safety science and engineering for decades. Until her recent retirement, she held the position of Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering. Her research interests include fire dynamics, pool fires, hot surface ignition, and diagnostics, with her specific expertise in the development of improved diagnostic techniques for use in reacting and non-reacting flows, reacting turbulent flows, and stability considerations in turbulent flows. Her research has resulted in more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, more than 40 peer-reviewed conference papers, and more than 100 short communications and papers with peer-reviewed abstracts. A look at her Google Scholar site Beth Weckman - Google Scholar shows the extent of the impact of her published work, with six papers being cited more than 100 times and 29 papers with at least 10 citations each. The most cited works include advancements in measurement technology and diagnostics for fire experimentation. These are absolutely critical contributions to the science of fire engineering. Her expertise and contributions have been significantly recognized over the years, not only in the publication, but as you will see in her CV, from being awarded more than CA$5,000,000 over her career. This level of funding does not come without stature in the discipline. Her publication history and research funding history are strong indicators of significant impact she has made in fire safety science and engineering. She has also been recognized by ATSM and others for transferring this knowledge into standards for all top benefit from.

Jason Floyd, Ph.D., FSFPE, UL Research Institutes' Fire Safety Research Institute (United States), and Jonathan Hodges, Ph.D., UL Research Institutes' Fire Safety Research Institute (United States) – presented the Jack Bono Award for Engineering Communication, endowed by UL Research Institutes, in recognition of their article in Fire Technology journal titled: "An Approach for Flux and Thickness Scaling of Cone Calorimeter Data for Predicting the Pyrolysis of Materials." 

Gülşah Ataş, PhD Candidate, RMIT University (Australia) – presented the Dr. Guylène Proulx, OC Scholarship for her research to further our understanding of human behavior in fire. Gulsah Atas's research uses immersive Virtual Reality (VR) driving simulations to study how people make decisions during real-time vehicle-based bushfire evacuations. The study will produce the first empirical dataset on en-route evacuation decision-making in bushfire conditions, integrating behavioral, physiological, and cognitive data collected in real time. This award also celebrates the support of her advisor, Dr. Erica Kuligowski (RMIT University).  

Tadele Mekuriaw Getu, PhD Candidate, Department of Civil Engineering, Queen's University, Canada, – presented a Student Scholar Award for his work to develop and validate a housing vulnerability classification to evaluate housing performance during wildfire events in a First Nations community. The specific objectives are to identify key vulnerability factors influencing structural damage, classify housing units based on these factors, evaluate the classification using observed wildfire damage, and examine how housing condition and limitations in mitigation influence structural outcomes. 

Maria Binte Mannan, Ph.D Candidate, University of Maryland, United States – presented a Student Scholar Award for her research focusing on advancing fire investigation through the development of quantitative, physics-based methodologies that bridge the gap between fire science and engineering practice. Traditional fire investigation relies heavily on qualitative interpretation of fire patterns, which can introduce subjectivity and uncertainty in determining fire origin, spread, and severity. To address this limitation, her research aims to establish measurable, data-driven approaches that enable more reliable, reproducible, and scientifically grounded fire damage assessment.

Mahadev (Dev) Rokade, PhD Student, Edinburgh Fire Research Centre, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, Scotland – presented the Frederick W. Mowrer Global Scholar Award, endowed by Kathleen Almand, for his research on “Behaviour of Sustainable Concrete under Realistic Fire Exposure: Thermo-Mechanical Response, Cooling-Phase Damage and Implications for Performance-Based Fire Engineering.”