Established under the Lorenz G. Straub Memorial Fund, this award is given for the most meritorious thesis in hydraulic engineering, ecohydraulics, or related fields. The competition is international, and nominations may be made by any recognized civil and environmental engineering program in the world. Recipients are presented with a Straub Award medal and a monetary gift. The year of the award corresponds to the completion of the dissertation.
Dr. Mandel arrived as a graduate student in Stanford's Environmental Fluid Mechanics and Hydrology program in the Fall of 2012 and was accepted into the Ph.D program after completing her M.S. degree. She completed her dissertation entitled “Free Surface Dynamics in the presence of Submerged Canopies” in August 2018, and was awarded her Ph.D degree that same month. Dr. Mandel is currently a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering at the University of New Hampshire after completing a one-year term as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Merced . In addition, to her stellar career as a researcher while at Stanford, Dr Mandel was also extremely active in mentoring more junior students and in promoting the field of fluid mechanics. She was one of the co-founders of SWIFD at Stanford – Stanford Women in Fluid Dynamics – and served as its President between 2015 and 2017.
More information can be found about the Lorenz G. Straub Award at https://cse.umn.edu/safl/awards