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, she joined UL Research Institutes' Fire Safety Research Institute as an intern in 2019. Her tenure was so successful, Bekah was offered a fellowship with ULRI’s Fire Safety Research Institute 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 ULRI’s Fire Safety Research Institute's FSRI’s Fellowship Program.

“I am very excited and honored to have been offered ULRI’s Fire Safety Research Institute fellowship. Having the opportunity to intern with ULRI’s Fire Safety Research Institute 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 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 ULRI’s Fire Safety Research Institute 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 research. She will be studying the radiative heat transfer and failure modes of different types of window systems when exposed to exterior fire.

ULRI’s Fire Safety Research Institute's Fellowship Program provides support for Graduate Research Assistantship each year, to incoming master's students enrolled at UMD and is awarded on a competitive basis.