Alumna receives Fulbright fellowship to conduct research in the Netherlands

Alumna receives Fulbright fellowship to conduct research in the Netherlands

Rice alumna and graduate student Antonia Sebastian ’11 was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in Water Management to conduct research on flood mitigation and risk in the Netherlands in the Department of Hydraulic Engineering at Delft University of Technology.

Toni Sebastian

Sebastian is one of two recipients of the 2014-2015 Netherlands-America Fulbright Fellowship in Water Management. Netherlands-America Fulbright Student Awards are intended for American citizens who are graduate students, prospective graduate students or promising young professionals who wish to study or conduct research in the Netherlands. The award covers living and travel expenses for one academic year.

Sebastian, a third-year graduate student at Rice in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is studying the flood risk posed by land use and climate change in urban coastal communities. In the Netherlands, 30 percent of the country lies below sea level and 60 percent is at risk from coastal or river flooding. Sebastian plans to create a methodology that can be applied in the Houston region to help decision-makers quantify flooding risks posed by extreme events and develop mitigation strategies. TU Delft’s Bas Jonkman, who will speak at Rice on Wednesday, and Philip Bedient, Rice’s Herman Brown Professor of Engineering, are supervising the project.

During her time at Rice, Sebastian has worked with the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disaster Center as a researcher and project manager. She has also authored peer-reviewed publications that have appeared in journals such as ASCE Natural Hazards and Coastal Engineering.

President Harry Truman enacted legislation authorizing the international scholarship program bearing the name of Sen. J. William Fulbright in 1946. The Fulbright program has become the gold standard in academic exchange and public diplomacy. Fulbright identifies the best and brightest minds in both countries and engages them in residential academic and cultural exchange to enhance mutual understanding and long-term collaboration. For more information on Fulbright-Netherlands, visit http://us.fulbrightonline.org/countries/selectedcountry/netherlands.