Country of Origin: India

ESR7. 100% RECYLCED ASPHALT (RA) FOR URBAN SURFACES (100%RAUS)

What inspired you to become a researcher in your field of expertise?

A large section of India’s rural population is isolated due to poor connectivity or quality of roads. And, growing up in a remote location made me realize the extent of this problem and scope for development. My intent to address these issues has inspired me to choose this field. The knowledge that I have acquired in past few years of my research has further narrowed my area of interest to work on developing a cost-effective and environment friendly pavement technology.

How will your work help improve people’s quality of life?

My work focuses on implementing an “urban mining” approach using asphalt 100% mined in cities for producing new hot asphalt mixtures. It aims to reduce the life cycle green house gases emissions from road construction, which will make the environment safer for road users as well as for construction workers. It will also reduce the cost of pavement construction, giving huge benefit to taxpayers of the country. The reduced cost will encourage the government to expand existing road networks thereby connecting people from distant areas to cities, which will provide them access to better healthcare, educational and commercial facilities.

What are you most looking forward to as part of your Marie Curie Action?

At SaferUp!, I intend to drive innovations in sustainable pavement construction that can be translated and applied at grassroots level. The guidance from the senior researchers and collaboration with the industry will help me to achieve my goals and allow me to prosper as a researcher in this area. I am also looking forward to collaborating with other ESRs’ for exchange of multidisciplinary knowledge through various secondments and training programme.