A LETTER FROM THE DEPARTMENT HEAD
On behalf of the faculty and staff in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, I would like to welcome you to our website. Our department is experiencing a very exciting period of growth and development. Throughout this newsletter, you will find evidence of the many ways in which our department is growing, thriving, and excelling. The latest US News and World Report ranked our undergraduate program as 15th in the nation and our graduate program as 17th. We have a large and growing number of undergraduates and, in the last year, graduated the 6th largest class of Civil and Environmental students in the country. We awarded 177 B.S. degrees and 34 graduate degrees. This year, the student pool is even larger.
During the past year, our faculty and students have experienced changes, successes, and achievements, as you will read in the pages of this newsletter. For example, Dr. Bruce Logan was been named one of Public Works magazine's 'Top 50 Trendsetters'. Dr. Fred Cannon was issued a US patent issued for his invention "Method for Perchlorate Removal from Ground Water". Dr. Thorsten Wagener won the Early Career Research Excellence Award from the International Environmental Modeling and Software Society. Dr. Patrick Reed received the National Science Foundation CAREER award for the development of an innovative approach to incorporating interdisciplinary research that provides an open access monitoring framework for long-term monitoring of groundwater and Dr. Rachel Brennan received the CAREER award to investigate the use of chitin as an alternative substrate to support the passive remediation of acid mine drainage. Brian Swartz, an MS student, received the ACI (American Concrete Institute) Fellowship for the 06-07 academic year. Our student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers was awarded a Certificate of Commendation and a Letter of Significant Improvement under the direction of Dr. Daniel Linzell, who was awarded the ASCE Faculty Advisor Certificate of Commendation.
Our website is loaded with information for potential students considering applying to the undergraduate and graduate programs, current undergraduate and graduate students, alumni (be sure to check the recent graduation photos!), and faculty and staff. Please take some time to explore our site and let us know if we can provide any additional information.
I expect that in our next few years we will see a continuance of growth and excellence in our department. I hope you will enjoy looking through our website.
Sincerely,
Peggy A. Johnson
Head and Professor