The National Center for Asphalt Technology at Auburn University has named Adriana Vargas-Nordcbeck, Fabricio Leiva-Villacorta, Fan Gu and Fan Yin to its research team.

Auburn alumna Vargas-Nordcbeck and her husband, Leiva-Villacorta, joined NCAT in August as assistant research professors. Vargas-Nordcbeck leads all pavement preservation experiments and pursues new projects related to pavement management and pavement preservation. She also teaches select civil engineering courses. Leiva-Villacorta leads research on using recycled materials in asphalt pavements, performs multi-scale pavement analysis, teaches civil engineering materials courses and instructs segments of NCAT training courses for the asphalt pavement industry.

Yin joined the staff in July as a postdoctoral researcher, and Gu joined in September. Yin is working on the cracking group experiments led by NCAT and the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s MnROAD facility. One of his initial assignments is to recommend a longterm aging protocol for lab and plant produced asphalt mixtures prior to cracking tests. He is also working on analysis of cracking tests, cost effectiveness of premium mixtures and porous asphalt pavements. Gu leads research regarding rolling resistance, cold central plant recycling and cold in-place recycling. He also assists numerous ongoing studies and instructs segments of NCAT training courses.