Moxuan Li Successfully Defended His MSc Thesis

On June 15th, Moxuan Li, a Master's student from the GEAR Lab, successfully defended his MS thesis "Geographical Disparities of Flash Flood Vulnerability in Texas." Congratulations!

In his thesis, Moxuan developed a vulnerability inference measurement (VIM) framework to quantify community vulnerability to flash floods in Texas at the block group and county levels. The relationship between empirical vulnerability assessment and communities' socioeconomic-environment characteristics was examined through multiple machine learning algorithms. The outcomes reveal spatial patterns of flash flood threats, damages, and vulnerability and identified six flash flood vulnerability contributors.

Special thanks go to his committee members, Dr. Burak Guneralp from TAMU Geography and Dr. Nasir Gharaibeh from TAMU Civil & Environmental Engineering. Thanks to Dr. Xiao Li for offering him an internship opportunity at Texas Transportation Institute during his graduate study. Thanks to the GEAR Lab colleagues who came to his defense and contributed to Moxuan's success! We wish Moxuan all the best in his future career!