Graduate teaching assistants play a vital role in mentoring students and supporting their academic success. This spring, Ph.D. candidates Jeremiah Adejube and Marcor Platt were recognized with the Department's Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award for their exceptional contributions to student learning. Through their dedication, accessibility, and passion for engineering education, both have left a lasting impression on the students they serve while continuing to advance impactful research in their respective fields.
Jeremiah Adejube
University of Utah Ph.D. candidate Jeremiah Adejube has earned two significant honors recognizing both his research and his commitment to student success. This spring, he received the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering's Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, and for the second consecutive year, he was selected as a recipient of the Asphalt Institute Foundation's Bill and Shireen Kirk Scholarship—a national award supporting outstanding students in pavement engineering.
Jeremiah conducts research in the Sustainable Pavement Materials Laboratory under the guidance of Dr. Pedro Romero. His work examines how engineers characterize and predict asphalt pavement performance, combining laboratory
testing, finite element modeling, and machine learning to improve performance predictions before pavements are ever built. By strengthening the connection between laboratory data and real-world engineering practice, his research aims to help create longer-lasting, more reliable transportation infrastructure.
While his research earned national recognition, Jeremiah has also made a lasting impact in the classroom. Over the past several semesters, he has taught CVEEN 3515 Lab and supported students in foundational engineering courses. Students consistently praised his accessibility, encouragement, and steady presence throughout the semester.
"Getting the Outstanding TA Award means a lot," Jeremiah said. "Every week, my goal was pretty simple: make the lab something students actually wanted to show up to. Watching that energy come back from them has been the best part."
After graduation, Jeremiah hopes to continue a career in transportation research, developing tools that bridge the gap between laboratory discoveries and the engineering standards used to design the roads we rely on every day.
Marcor Platt
Ph.D. student Marcor Platt has been named a recipient of the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering's Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award for Spring 2026, recognizing his exceptional dedication to student success. Based on student feedback across multiple courses, Marcor was praised for his accessibility, reliability, and unwavering support both inside and outside the classroom. Despite the challenges of assisting with a large variety of courses, including a primarily online course, students consistently highlighted the positive impact he had on their learning experience.
That same commitment to practical problem-solving also defines his research.
Working under the guidance of Professor Chris Pantelides, Marcor is tackling a longstanding challenge in structural engineering: the disconnect between building code wind and seismic design requirements for complex roof diaphragms and what engineers actually do in practice. Current analysis methods for complex diaphragms are often so cumbersome and time-consuming that engineers can overly-simplify—or sometimes even overlook—the essential detailing required so these roofs can withstand expected seismic and wind loads. As a result, many residential roofs are inadequately designed for earthquake and wind resistance.
Marcor's research is to develop a performance-based, experimentally validated, and practical design method that engineers can realistically use in everyday practice. By making code-compliant design more accessible, his work has the potential to improve the safety and resilience of residential buildings in communities worldwide.
After completing his Ph.D., Marcor plans to continue his career as a design and forensic engineer and expert witness, applying advanced structural engineering research to investigate infrastructure performance and help create a safer built environment.