This page is no longer being updated and remains online for informational and historical purposes only. The information is accurate as of the last page update.
For questions about page contents, contact the Communications Division.
When Ronald Manney ’05 (Coal Township, Pa.) graduates from Lafayette next spring, he hopes to pursue a career designing foundations near water. In fact, he’s already presented related research at a national conference.
There’s no doubt in the civil engineering major’s mind that the expertise he needs to find a job in this area will be boosted tremendously by the research he’s conducting this summer, which involves using electricity to analyze limestone and other fragile karst geology.
Because much of the Lehigh Valley sits on a bed of limestone, electrical resistivity, the use of electrodes to pass electricity through the ground, is a more precise way of learning what structures can be constructed than other methods, Manney says.
“What they do now for building is use boring holes,” Manney said. “They drill down, move 100 feet, drill, and move on. But between that 100 feet, there could be a void.”
When roads, bridges or structures are built on top of a void in the limestone, sinkholes result.
“(With the electrical tests), we can get an idea of what is in the ground and where to look and our outputs can tell where to send the boring rig,” Manney adds.
Since last summer, Manney has been collaborating with Mary J.S. Roth ’83, associate professor and head of civil and environmental engineering, as part of Lafayette’s distinctive EXCEL Scholars Program. In EXCEL, students conduct research with faculty while earning a stipend. The program has helped to make Lafayette a national leader in undergraduate research. Many of the more than 160 students who participate each year share their work through articles in academic journals and/or conference presentations.
The project has grown in scope since Manney and Roth first began analyzing the ground. Earlier research only showed a two-dimensional image of the testing area. Through equipment provided by a National Science Foundation grant, the testing now gives Roth and Manney a more accurate, three-dimensional output, including height, width, and volume.
Without Manney, Roth says, the project would be much more difficult to complete.
“Ron runs the field work and he’s also involved in looking at and analyzing results and helping to interpret what they mean relative to the conditions at the site,” she says.
In addition to the fieldwork, Manney and two other student researchers co-authored a paper with Roth and her collaborators at Temple University.
Last spring, Manney accompanied Roth to the Symposium on the Application of Geophysics for Engineering and Environmental Purposes in Colorado Springs, where they presented their research.
“EXCEL probably has the highest number of positives on both sides,” Roth said. “It gives me perspective — the students often see things, or see things in a different way, and their explanations are as good as mine. They come with a fresh viewpoint.”
The program reinforces a student’s organizational skills and the ability to look at a problem from more than one perspective and to consider multiple explanations to the same set of data, adds Roth.
Manney says the project has turned him on to the idea of research and helped him decide to go to graduate school.
“People go day in and day out doing the same stuff; research is always new and allows for a challenge,” he explains. “It’s mind-numbing and it hurts sometimes, but that’s what I love about it, the challenge.”
A graduate of Shamokin Area High School, Manney is president of the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers, a member of Lafayette’s Steel Bridge Team, and an intramural co-chair.
As a national leader in undergraduate research, Lafayette sends one of the largest contingents to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research each year. Forty-two students were accepted to present their work at the last annual conference in April.