• (Past) Research Associate, Research Advisor and Lab Manager for Ph.D. and M.S. students (UW-Milwaukee)

Ismael Flores Vivian, completed his Ph.D. research on “Synthesis of SiO2 nanoparticles of and their effect on microstructure, rheological, and mechanical properties of cement based materials” at the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon (UANL), Mexico. He graduated with honors in 2009.

Vivian researches material and hydration product characterization techniques and the effects of nanomaterials, fibers, supplementary cementitious materials and chemical admixtures on high performance concrete.

In his position as a research associate at UWM, he worked with Professor Konstantin Sobolev on superhydrophobic engineered cementitious composites, de-icing superhydrophobic concrete, and optimized concrete pavement mixtures.

Rajan Saha obtained a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET) in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2006. He joined the Department of Civil Engineering at BUET as a research assistant and conducted research on earthquake vulnerability analysis of structures. He started research in the field of asphalt materials (Transportation Engineering) at Louisiana Tech University (LTU) in 2009 and received his Ph.D. at Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, Louisiana, USA in March 2013, where he did research on warm mix asphalt.
At UWM, he was a research associate in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.

Research Interests:

• Use of fly ash (mineral fillers) in asphalt (ASHphalt)
• Asphalt rheology
• Warm mix asphalt
• Asphalt modeling
• Physicochemical characterization of asphalt materials
• Micro- and nano-scale characterization
• Multi-scale modeling of pavement materials