The 2006 ASTM International Katherine and Bryant Mather Scholarship has been awarded to Raissa Ferron, a teaching assistant and Ph.D. candidate studying self-consolidating concrete and cementitious materials at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

Ferron lives in Chicago, Ill.

ASTM International Committee C09 on Concrete and Concrete Aggregates administers the scholarship, which assists full-time undergraduate students who are completing their second/sophomore year of college, or graduate students pursuing degrees specializing in cement or concrete materials technology or concrete construction. The scholarship was established in 2005.

After completing her degree at Northwestern, Ferron plans to pursue an academic career and complete the process to become a licensed engineer. Currently a research assistant at the Center for Advanced Cement-Based Materials in Evanston, Ill., a position she has held since 2002, Ferron works on the properties of fresh and hardened self-consolidating concrete. At present, she is focusing on research to gain an understanding of the mechanisms controlling flocculation and thixotropy of cementitious materials during the early stages of hydration. Ferron has coauthored related papers published in conference proceedings and made oral and poster presentations about this work.

Ferron has been involved in the Preparing Future Faculty Program at Northwestern and in such student organizations as the Black Graduate Student Association, which she served as president, and the Civil and Environment Engineering Graduate Student Advisory Board. She has also been part of Northwestern's Graduate Leadership Council and participated in such university programs as Career Day for Girls, Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates, and the Summer Research Opportunity Program.

Ferron graduated summa cum laude in 2002 from Howard University, where she earned her B.S. in civil engineering. She completed her M.S. in civil engineering at Northwestern in 2004. Her master's thesis addressed the "Development of Self-Consolidating Concrete with Type F Fly Ash With a Verification of the Minimum Paste Volume Method."

While at Howard University, Ferron became vice president of the campus chapter of Tau Beta Pi, the national engineering honor society, and for two years served as president of the university chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers. She continues as a member of Tau Beta Pi and ASCE, and she is also a member of the American Concrete Institute.

Ferron, listed in Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities, has received a number of honors, including the Illinois Ready Mixed Concrete Association Harvey H. Hagge Concrete Scholarship in 2006, a first place in the 2005 ACBM Poster Competition, and a National Science Foundation Fellowship--Honorable Mention. She was also an Illinois Minority Graduate Incentive Fellow from 2002 to 2005, and an American Concrete Institute Student Fellow from 2002 to 2003, and a Portland Cement Association fellow from 2002 to 2003. Ferron has had internships with Camp, Dresser, and McKee, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, York Hunter Construction Services, and Brooklyn Union Gas Co.

Release #7437