With deep family roots in the fire service, Bekah Schrader knew from a very young age that she would pursue a career in fire safety. While working toward an undergraduate degree in Fire Protection Engineering from the University of Maryland (UMD), she joined UL’s Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI) as an intern in 2019. Her tenure was so successful, Bekah was offered a fellowship with FSRI to support her graduation research and she is pursuing a Master’s of Science (M.S) in Fire Protection Engineering at UMD, as part of FSRI’s Fellowship Program.

“I am very excited and honored to have been offered the FSRI fellowship. Having the opportunity to intern with FSRI over the last few years has been such an incredible experience,” said Bekah.

Bekah spent her final days as an intern instrumenting and testing houses in the Delaware County Emergency Services Training Center (DelCo) in Pennsylvania, as part of the Impact of HVAC on Fire Patterns experiments. She assisted with a gas sampling system, and learned how to install devices that measure heat, temperature, pressure and heat flux.

“This summer has provided me with a solid foundation of understanding what goes into field work and how to measure many types of variables during a test,” said Bekah. “My time at FSRI has affirmed my desire to continue pursuing a career in fire research.”

The focus on Bekah’s thesis project will be on wildland-urban interface (WUI) research. She will be studying the radiative heat transfer and failure modes of different types of window systems when exposed to exterior fire.

FSRI’s Fellowship Program provides support for Graduate Research Assistantship (GRA) each year, to incoming master's students enrolled at UMD and is awarded on a competitive basis.