NEWS
NORMAN, Okla. — Two teams of University of Oklahoma students recently competed in the Texas Asphalt Pavement Association Asphalt competition.
Joshua Cunningham, a senior in the Gallogly College of Engineering and one of the team captains for the OU team, said the competition was a great learning opportunity for him.
“As a participant of the TXAPA Asphalt competition, I learned how to manage projects, engineer and manufacture asphalt to state specifications,” Cunningham said. “The leadership in OU Asphalt lab is top tier and I owe everything I have learned to the staff there.”
The teams designed, manufactured and tested a 2x2 slab of asphalt for the competition. This helps them learn about the engineering and lab work behind the country’s infrastructure.
To test the slab, it gets driven on 12 times then parked on for 10 minutes. Following the tests, the team also gets judged on a presentation about their work.
The two OU teams placed fourth and seventh in this year’s competition.
About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. As the state’s flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. OU was named the state’s highest-ranking university in U.S. News & World Report’s most recent Best Colleges list. For more information about the university, visit ou.edu.
Three University of Oklahoma graduate students have been named winners of the 2025 Three Minute Thesis competition, which challenges participants to explain their research in three minutes to a non-specialist audience.
Sarah Sharif, a researcher with the University of Oklahoma, has been awarded funding from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to create innovative light detectors that pick up mid-wave and long-wave infrared signals at higher temperatures than previously considered achievable.
A team from OU and WVU recently earned a five-year, $3.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how concept cigarillos influence the potential for addiction. The results will be used to inform the FDA’s impending flavor ban on cigar products and could have wider-reaching implications for other tobacco products that come in flavors, such as e-cigarettes and tobacco-free nicotine pouches.
