Faria Tuz Zahura, class of 2022, when not working towards her PhD loves to paint nature scenes. She is a student resident at the Link Lab where she works on urban coastal flooding projects with the Associate Director of the Lab, Dr. Jon Goodall.Faria is a native of Dhaka, Bangladesh but has recently moved to Lubbock, Texas from Charlottesville to live with her husband. When she's not researching, she enjoys painting nature scenes and the little joys in life, such as a morning cup of coffee or tea to start off her day. Faria is a warm and empathetic person who takes enjoyment in knowing that the people around her are happy, especially her parents.
What three words have described your life in the past year?
Research, travelling, masters.
Why did you choose those words to describe the last year?
Last year I went to Bangladesh to see my family. It was the first time I had been there in two years after I moved to the United States. It was great to see them after such a long time. I enjoyed having “Deshi” food that I was craving for a long time. No other food tastes like the food from your own country, I suppose it's true for everyone. I'm not sure when I will see them next time. My favorite moment of researching would be the time after finishing my presentation in our group meeting. That time is very relaxing for me, when I am done presenting my work update in the group meeting and then I get to go home to take a nap.
Do you have a favorite place to paint?
I don't have any favorite place to paint. I really love the city of Charlottesville. I think every part of it makes me happy because it's green and I can see the mountains. I just moved to Lubbock, Texas to live with my husband and I am missing Charlottesville a lot. Before moving I made some paintings of Charlottesville to bring with me.
A painting of the Rivanna Trail by Faria Tuz Zahura
What kind of projects have you worked on while at the Link Lab?
The project I am working on is an interdisciplinary project linking water resources engineering, transportation engineering, and computer science. My work in this project mainly focuses on urban coastal flooding. We are developing a model using machine learning to facilitate real-time flood prediction to reduce travel disruption. We are also studying how flooding is affecting the transportation system in Norfolk, VA. In addition, we are exploring how to utilize crowdsourced data from Waze to validate the flood models and to study travel disruption.
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