Isaac Howard, Mississippi State professor and Richard A. Rula School of Civil and Environmental Engineering director, and Jessica Lewis, a civil engineering graduate student from New Orleans, Louisiana, compare asphalt samples in the Rula Engineering and Science Complex. For more than a decade, Howard has researched how asphalt ages and how recycling a variety of materials into asphalt affects its long-term durability in the Southeast’s hot, wet climate. Opened in 2021, the Rula Engineering and Science Complex's comprehensive materials storage room contains thousands of asphalt specimens of various ages and large quantities of raw ingredients. For more campus scenes from the complex, click here.