CoMSIRU's very own Carnegie PhD fellowship recipient

Areej Gamieldien, a PhD candidate under the Concrete Materials and Structural Integrity Research Unit (CoMSIRU), has been awarded a Carnegie PhD Fellowship. The fellowship is supported by the Carnegie DEAL 3 Developing Emerging Academic Leaders award scheme. This fellowship aims to mentor and strengthen the career path of the next generation of African researchers. As an awardee of the fellowship, Areej joins a community of researchers actively working towards addressing issues relevant to and impacting Africa.

Areej holds an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering with first-class honours from UCT, attained in 2020. She initially joined CoMSIRU as a master’s student in the Civil Infrastructure Management and Maintenance program before upgrading her studies to a PhD in 2022. Her research focuses on using recycled concrete fines, produced when crushing concrete waste, as a binder in the production of new concrete. She envisages the outcomes of her research to contribute towards improving the circularity of material resources in the construction industry and reducing associated carbon emissions.