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Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering College of Engineering University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Winter 2013
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CEE at Illinois Online • • • • • • • •
Earn your master’s degree entirely online. Work with our top-ranked faculty. Take the same classes as resident students. Interact with other students through projects and assignments. Earn the same M.S. degree with the same degree requirements as on-campus students. Access lectures and course materials online. Work toward professional development hours and certificates. Enjoy the flexibility and convenience of an online program.
Professional Development Hours, Certificates You can register as a non-degree student for a single course or pursue a 3-course certificate as a non-degree student. Afterwards, you can apply for the M.S. program and transfer up to 12 hours (3 courses) to be used toward your 36-hour M.S. degree program requirement.
cee.illinois.edu/ceeonline
CEE CEE is is published published twice twice aa year year for for alumni alumni and friends of the Department and friends of the Department of of Civil Civil and and Environmental Engineering at the Environmental Engineering at the University University of of Illinois Illinois at at Urbana-Champaign. Urbana-Champaign. Those Those alumni who alumni who donate donate annually annually to to CEE CEE at at Illinois Illinois receive receive every every issue. issue. Amr Amr S. S. Elnashai Elnashai Professor Professor and and Head Head John Kelley John E. Southwood Director Director of of Advancement Advancement and Alumni Relations Celeste Bragorgos Celeste DirectorBragorgos of Communications Director of Communications Breanne Ertmer Breanne Ertmer Coordinator Alumni Relations External Relations Coordinator Letters, comments and editorial submissions: Letters, comments and editorial submissions: CEE Magazine CEE Magazine Department of Civil and Environmental Department Engineering of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 1210 Newmark Civil at Engineering Laboratory 1117 Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory MC-250 MC-250 205 North Mathews Avenue 205 North Mathews Avenue Urbana, Illinois 61801 Urbana, Illinois 61801 (217) 333-6955 (217) 333-6955 celeste@illinois.edu celeste@illinois.edu Advertising inquiries: Advertising inquiries: Celeste Bragorgos Celeste Bragorgos (217) 333-6955 (217) 333-6955 celeste@illinois.edu celeste@illinois.edu
cee.illinois.edu Covercover: Photo: Front Photo of the new M.T. Geoffrey Yeh Erich Adickes Student Center, completed in June. Photo: Erich Adickes Follow CEE at Illinois: facebook.com/ceeatillinois twitter.com/ceeatillinois youtube.com/ceeatillinois
CEE Winter 2013
4 Minding Our Own Business/Amr S. Elnashai 8 President’s note/Tracy Lundin (BS 72, MS 73) 9 Make a difference: your gifts in action 10 Scholarships: a boost for our talented undergrads 13 New program gives undergrads research experience 14 Fellowships: attracting promising grad students 16 Professorships, Chairs: fueling research innovation 18 “Skunk Works”: Retired prof funds current research 20 Why I give/Paul Koch (BS 66, MS 68) 20 CEE Innovation Grants spark new ideas 21 Make a difference: ways to give
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22 Student organizations 24 Summer of big numbers/Daniel Malsom 26 Researchers study Sandy aftermath in NYC 27 Smart phone app will aid post-disaster response 27 Team studies track components for shared-use rail lines 28 Department news
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29 In memoriam 30 Alumni news 32 Old Masters: Jack Briscoe 33 Corporate and foundation donors 34 Sponsored research 38 Individual donors 42 Parting shot: Thank you 24
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Minding Our Own Business Amr S. Elnashai, Professor and Head William J. and Elaine F. Hall Endowed Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering by
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ow much business acumen, if any, is required in academic leaders? How much business practice, if any, is good for academic institutions? These are questions that are relatively new to the public academy in particular. The answers vary across the spectrum, from the purist who would immediately quote a minimum H-index, using only SCI journals, as the most important qualification of academic leadership, to the modernist who contends that academic units are businesses competing and investing, planning and implementing, sustaining both academic excellence and a healthy balance sheet. We need leaders who are top researchers and educators, otherwise they would neither have the credibility to lead, nor truly appreciate the ethos of the academy. Once in office, we want our leaders to be fully invested in implementing the best management practices and to take pride in the achievements of others more than in their own. Following my article in the CEE at Illinois magazine of summer 2012, where I wrote that there is so much more literature on running a business than running a university, I received considerable feedback, from agreeing, to forwarding a few books that deal with academic management. I received a gift from a dear friend and sitting dean; she kindly gave me a small 38page publication by Jim Collins, author of the voluminous “Built to Last” and “Good to Great.” The publication, entitled “Good to Great and the Social Sectors,” ponders all non-profit organizations, such as the YWCA, The New York Police Department, the Cleveland Orchestra, all types of universities, and a few other organizational entities. The small publication contains many good ideas that are helpful in un4
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derstanding leadership in the absence of authority and excellence in the context of the relationship between input and output. In business, money is both an input (a resource for achieving excellence) and an output (a measure of excellence). In academe on the other hand the outputs are skilled graduates, intellectual capital and service to society. The input in academe required for excellence is a combination of money and human capital; the relationship between them is sharply distinct to that in industry. A company that has access to sufficient finance can acquire a high quality workforce instantly. A startup university, or a university aspiring to rise in academic rankings, would find it extremely challenging to attract high quality faculty and students in the short term solely by virtue of financial incentives. Compelling visions and inspiring views on academic leadership are available in the literature; I cite three specific contributions: Chuck Vest’s “Pursuing the Endless Frontier,” James Duderstadt’s “The View from the Helm,” and Frank Rhoades’ “The Creation of the Future.” The three pioneers of MIT, Michigan and Cornell, respectively, enriched our world with their intellect, and achieved great success through implementing their vision in their respective institutions. They left us, though, with the challenging task of searching for generic, transferable and scalable models that we can customize to our own academic ecosystem. In the interest of brevity, I will not dwell on justifying that academic organizations require at least as much effort to establish business models that suit their nature, and that such models are distinct from “business” business models. The case for delib-
erately managing and leading academic institutions is compelling, indeed irrefutable. How else can we achieve our goal of maintaining excellence? What does it mean when we declare that one of our objectives is to be a globally-connected academy of learning and discovery? How will we achieve this goal? Will we stumble on a globe? Or suddenly receive invitations from the top institutions worldwide for cooperation that suits our values and fits with our aspirations and organizational priorities? In the franticly competitive world we live in, maintaining excellence is a totally deliberate and planned pursuit. The same applies to all features of greatness in the academy. The only way forward is developing and applying an academic business model, while being mindful of the power of agility, flexibility and constructive opportunism. I tested this thesis in discussions with several academic leaders more experienced and at higher levels than me. The feedback was positive, and we have embarked in pursuit of this aptly named “operation model.” By an operational model for academe, I mean a generic and complete description of how to run academic establishments using fully-coupled academic and financial components and sub-components.
A strategy-based academic plan
Anecdotal and actual data exist on academic institutions and their constituent units operating on historical bases, while their respective strategies, of varying complexity, are wrapped in obscurity. My personal data-collection campaign yielded responses varying between “we do not believe in strategy; we are opportunistic,” to “we have a very good strategy, but we are not using it because … .” True,
We should seek a circumstances sometimes render it inevitable to abandon a strategy because of a substantial change in important features of an academic unit. It is equally true that a strategy should be “strategic” enough to be reinterpreted in different contexts, in the form of a strategy implementation plan. We need to lock-in our strategy once developed and approved. I take one step back to addressing the question of how to develop an academic strategy. We all know that academic lines of authority are fuzzy, and leading by serving—leading with constrained authority—are integral to academic life. Imposition of a strategy by the leadership is an omnipotent recipe for failure. Moreover, I avidly believe that seeking “buy-in” sits very uncomfortably on the academic round table. We should seek a Community Strategy as the only truly viable option in the academy. The leadership should exercise collegiate debate, though guided, towards establishing values, vision and mission that fulfill the aspirations of the faculty in enhancing the quality of life. We need to engage in conversations about the alignment of personal and institutional aspirations. We need to hold community-driven retreats that are well thought out, choreographed, and prepared for. We need to go into our forums with draft strategies that are clear enough to propel us forward and flexible enough to be adaptive and inclusive. Once developed, it is imperative to lock the strategy in and move towards defining Strategic Goals and implementation tactics. It is of great importance to delineate between Community Strategy and Implementation Plan. Often we agree on the goal, but then the implementation process touches on aspects of our academic life that we had not anticipated. Academic institutions who do not clearly delineate between strategy, goals and implementation run the risk of entering infinite loops of re-evaluating strategy to avoid features of implementation that may not suit some members of the community. The implementation plan addresses each goal and details who
Community Strategy
lios of the academic is in charge, what are the as the only truly plan, namely unresources required (money, dergraduate and space, personnel), the timeviable option in the graduate education, line for achieving the goal, research, research and the metric or metrics academy. administration and used for assessing the detechnology transfer, gree of success. I hear dissenting voices—“metrics do not work, service, governance, community, global, especially in academe”—but I am not communications and development. In persuaded. We need metrics or metric- other words, the functional budget convectors that capture the flavor of what tains the “portfolios” of the academic we are expecting as an outcome. At the plan as line items. Each line item of the very least, monitoring these metrics dur- functional budget is a single item in a ing the strategy implementation phase set of Portfolio Budgets. Each portfolio will furnish relative performance indica- budget is managed by a member of the tors, if not absolute measures of achieve- academic unit, who is in overall charge of ment. Those responsible for goals should one or more of the goals that are listed be expected to hold a tight schedule of in the implementation plan. A significant assessment, reporting, and readjusting challenge faced in developing credible processes to achieve the desired progress components of the financial model is the toward the goals. The goals are best de- mapping of conventional expenditures veloped to reside each within one of the onto the portfolios. For example, it may fundamental activities in academe, such be tempting to think that the “research” as undergraduate and graduate educa- portfolio is made up of the research extion, research, research administration, penditure of the unit. This is certainly not technology transfer, technical and soci- the case. There are many activities that etal service, community building, gover- are funded through research projects nance, global outreach, communications that map onto academic endeavors other and development. We refer to the com- than the research portfolio. For example, ponents of the latter list as “portfolios” for supporting undergraduate students on reasons that will become clear when we research grants is better viewed as education. Holding an overseas international develop the financial model. workshop is better viewed as a contribution to global outreach. Such examples A financial model for academe Worthwhile goals identified by aca- abound—an observation that complideme often go unfulfilled and sometimes cates the derivation of a credible set of are fulfilled by serendipity. I submit that portfolio budgets. Let us ask ourselves this is because we do not couple academ- what is the importance of these portfolio ic goals and financial plans. To achieve budgets that warrants the effort of derivthe sought coupling, we need a budget ing them? Well, if we want to deliberately model that maps onto the fundamental further the goals in our implementation functions of academic units and meshes plan, investing through these portfolios with their strategy implementation plan. can hardly be beaten. Another example There are three components of the pro- of the creativity needed to derive a credposed financial model, each fulfilling a ible portfolio budget is the parsing of distinct and indispensable role. First, we faculty and administration salaries onto need to reformulate our entire financial the portfolios, which typically form a subtransactions environment, or Conven- stantial slice of academic budgets. An aptional Budget, into a Functional Budget. propriate means of this intricate parsing The functional budget traces expenditure exercise, and one that we pursued, is pollrelated to the aforementioned portfo- continued on page 6 CEE at Illinois—Winter 2013 5
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ing the faculty and administrators, giving them the headings of the portfolios. We tried the latter approach, with considerable success. There are other challenges in deriving credible functional and portfolio budgets; however parsing of conventional budget line items and slicing of salaries are the main ones. There is a related, subtle and important issue that was brought to my attention by a dear colleague and an experienced academic administrator at Illinois. The question posed to me was, “What freedom do we have to steer portfolios in support of the goals?” The answer is, “It varies from one portfolio to another, and the steering mechanisms are different.” For example, influencing technology transfer, if this is one of the implementation plan goals, is relatively straightforward. The academic unit may provide incentives to faculty who file invention disclosures, hold joint industry-faculty events, activating an industry liaison unit, administratively underwrite the effort to commercialize research products and develop communication mechanisms specifically targeted at industrial stakeholders. Creativity and perseverance are necessary to fine-tune portfolios in support of the community goals that feature in the implementation plan. The final component of the financial model is Budget Projection. Again, my personal data-gathering campaign confirms that precious few units engage in detailed budget projections in a manner that gives credence to these projections—credence that underpins confidence to take decisions now based on challenges or opportunities five or more years later. We need to study carefully, and in context, a number of past years. We need to focus on changing patterns in our previous budgets, and then engage in attribution dialogues so that we develop an understanding of the drivers that caused the changing patterns. Armed with this understanding, we should develop our budget projections for at least five years, based on assumptions. We should then test these assumptions through further 6
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community interactions, and associate confidence intervals with each. Finally, we should run what-if scenarios to establish ranges of budget deficit or surplus. Credible and robust budget projections are the only way to continue to update our goals and implementation plan with cognizance of anticipated financial challenges or surplus suitable for investment.
Driving academic strategy implementation through targeted investment
We accomplish the task of driving the strategy implementation plan by investment, to achieve and maintain excellence, in three steps; in reality they are applied simultaneously and interchangeably. We couple the implementation plan and the functional budget by establishing target percentage investment in specific activities that are essential from an academic viewpoint. These target percentages could be established in comparison with national and international institutions that have excelled in a specific topic (in our case, a specific portfolio). I refer to the latter element of coupling as “global or peer-comparison drivers.” The implementation plan will have specific goals and even prioritization indices amongst these goals. The priority goals are also used to steer investment; I refer to this element of coupling as “implementation drivers.” When portfolio holders submit their budget requests, these are reviewed by the leadership in the light of the goals of the implementation plan. Annual and periodic realignment and portfolio budget negotiations are an important component of coupling the financial model and the academic strategy. Finally, the budget projection is used to identify potential deficit and surplus scenarios. Both deficit and surplus are used to review the strategic goals, and their implementation, to either focus on creating new revenue streams, or add further investment options, respectively. With these three components (functional budget drivers, portfolio budget realignment and strategic goals projection), coupling is com-
CEEAA Board of Directors President Tracy K. Lundin, P.E., (BS 80, MS 82) Fermilab Batavia, Illinois Vice President Allen J. Staron, P.E., (BS 74) Clark Dietz Inc. Chicago Second Vice President and Secretary Colleen E. Quinn, P.E., (BS 84) Ricondo & Associates Inc. Chicago Past President Lawrence P. Jaworski, P.E., (BS 72, MS 73) Brown and Caldwell Beltsville, Maryland Directors Daniel F. Burke (BS 92, MS 93) City of Chicago Department of Transportation Chicago David Byrd (BS 01, MS 06) EFI Global Inc. Addison, Illinois Lynne E. Chicoine (BS 78, MS 80) CH2M HILL Portland, Oregon James M. Daum, P.E., (BS 77) Bowman, Barrett & Associates Chicago Stanley M. Herrin, P.E., (BS 74, MS 78) Crawford, Murphy & Tilly Inc. Springfield, Illinois Alan J. Hollenbeck, P.E., (BS 75, MS 77) RJN Group Inc. Wheaton, Illinois Deron G. Huck, P.E., (BS 90) CH2M HILL Kansas City, Missouri John P. Kos, P.E., (BS 77) DuPage County Dana B. Mehlman, P.E., (BS 99, MS 01) Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP Chicago Wilbur C. Milhouse, P.E., (BS 94, MS 95) Milhouse Engineering & Construction Inc. Chicago Paula C. Pienton (BS 85) Ty Lin International Group Chicago Frank Powers (BS 82, MS 83) H.W. Lochner Inc. Chicago Julian C. Rueda (BS 80, MS 82) Geo Services Inc. Naperville, Illinois C. Wayne Swafford (BS 78, MS 82) Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. Oakland, California Scott Trotter (BS 90) Trotter and Associates Inc. Saint Charles, Illinois
Business Model for Academic Institutions (development of CEE at Illinois)
plete and the academic plan is driven by the financial model, which in turn alerts the leadership of potential required revision of the goals. Academic excellence becomes a deliberate process of identifying the targets, creatively investing to achieve the targets, and a closed-loop process of assessing the level of success towards our goals.
Testing of the Business Model
We started developing the model about two years ago, with rather tentative ideas that were refined during preparation for an external review of our department, described in my article of winter 2011. We debated internally, and communicated externally, both in the U.S. and further afield. One would have been excused to think that such business models for academe abound. They do not. Presidents, deans, department heads, other colleagues, mostly in academe, and
a few industrial leaders commented on our early efforts, and we learned a great deal from each and every discussion. The feedback has been unanimously supportive, and therefore gratifying. The shown diagram is a compact and comprehensive representation of our operational model. All components of the model are now implemented in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Illinois. We developed a true community strategy in September 2011 and thereafter articulated a detailed implementation plan where each goal is managed by a member of the faculty. We are still refining the functional budget process, by analyzing individual projects and gaining insights into the true breakdown of expenditures. Our “effort survey� of faculty and staff has been very successful. Almost all of our portfolios have been allocated, a round of budget requests has been approved and released, and our five-year budget projec-
tion assumptions we tested thoroughly. We are confident that managing our academic enterprise in the deliberate manner described above is essential in the current environment of shrinking state allocations and expanding personal and institutional ambitions of our superb faculty, gifted students and exceptional staff. First and foremost, it is the only means by which we will maintain excellence and enhance even further our leadership position, both in the U.S. and internationally. We also balanced pre-determined, deliberate directions and agile, constructive opportunism. We are committed to sharing our experience with others and continuing our path-finding mission to refine this first business model for academic institutions, also known as operational model. CEE at Illinois is not only a leader in education and research, but also in academic management and progressive administration. i CEE at Illinois—Winter 2013 7
Civilization By Tracy K. Lundin, P.E., (BS 80, MS 82) President, CEE Alumni Association Board of Directors s civil engineers we consider ourselves to be builders of civilization – and we are. Our facilities and systems serve the most immediate needs of mankind; from buildings to roadways, from airports to parking lots, we are responsible for infrastructure that billions of people use every single day. We strive to make life stronger, faster, cleaner and safer than it was the year before and we do this with little fanfare. We have played our role in the past and we will be there for the next great success, as well as the one after that, because the work of a civil engineer marches lockstep with the timeline of the world. History reminds us of this. While the Roman Empire slowly crumbled into the pages of the past, their aqueducts and coliseums still stand. We saw the Empire State Building conceived and erected by the still-glowing tongs of industry, an achievement that reigned atop the world’s skyline for decades. We have built cities in every corner of the globe. These are the works of the civil engineer. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines civilization as “a relatively high level of cultural and technological development.” I would argue that, at its core, the mission of the civil engineer is to improve and achieve a high level of cultural and technological development in a manner that enhances public safety. Because much of our work is accomplished using the mundane, everyday materials of water, concrete, and steel we may not view our work as being linked to technology, let alone promoting technological development. Perhaps we, and the public at large, view technological development in the modern context of the digital age where development is in the hands of the software developer, or database administrator. It would not surprise you that these careers were included in an April 5, 2012, story by U.S. News and World Report of “The 6 Hottest Tech Careers of 2012.” What may surprise you is that civil engineer was listed as number six, right behind computer programmer. Civil engineering on the cutting edge of modern technology? Absolutely. While we may not think of ourselves as technological leaders, spending time with any number of the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Civil and Environmental (CEE) department – your department - will give you ample evidence that civil engineering is a technology-driven profession. At the September 2012 board meeting of the CEE Alumni Association (CEEAA), board members had the opportunity to
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You can join our mission by participating in events, volunteering your time, or by providing financial support to the department – your department.
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listen to a recent CEE faculty addition, Assistant Professor Jeremy Guest, discuss quantitative sustainable design in biotechnology development, specifically customizing wastewater treatment plant design to optimize the decisions of dollars spent versus emissions. Dr. Guest’s presentation is, I believe, representative of the current body of work being advanced by our department faculty, who represent an outstanding collection of innovators and educators. My belief is supported by the recent U.S. News and World Report rankings of the best civil engineering programs in the country, which ranked the University of Illinois at Urbana’s CEE department, your department, as the number one undergraduate civil engineering program in the nation. In the 30 years since I received my degrees from the university, I cannot recall a time when the department was not ranked somewhere in the top three in the U.S. I maintain that this is because all those involved with the department – department heads, faculty, staff, and alumni are committed to the excellence of our department. This commitment of excellence translates to a tangible and significant benefit granted to every new University of Illinois civil engineering graduate, a benefit that lasts a lifetime. So, I ask you, as members of a profession whose mission is to enhance civilization, as alumni of a department that remains the vanguard of the profession in the U.S., what can you do to pay back the benefit that you have received as a civil engineering graduate of Illinois? Become a part of the CEEAA mission. You can join our mission by participating in events, volunteering your time, or by providing financial support to the department – your department. Check out who we are and what we do on the department website at cee.illinois. edu/alumni, and look for an opportunity to participate. Many opportunities exist. Join us on March 6, 2013, in Chicago for our annual meeting and dinner. Join us next fall on September 6, 2013, for a reception, or the following day on September 7 for a tailgate party prior to the football game against Cincinnati, where we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the CEE alumni association – your alumni association. However you are able to participate, to whatever level you are able to participate, find a way to pay back the benefit that you have received as a product of the best CEE department in the nation. You should do this to be a true civil engineer. i
CEE at Illinois is making a difference — in the lives of students, in the practice of civil and environmental engineering, and in quality of life around the world. Want to make a difference too? Here’s how.
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ne of the highest-impact ways to give is to help students through scholarships and fellowships and to support the work of faculty through endowed chairs and professorships. On these pages, we present some members of the CEE at Illinois family who benefit from your alumni gifts and the ways in which they are magnifying those gifts. Students who receive scholarships excel in their studies, enhance the university community through extracurricular involvements, improve quality of life through service and innovative
research, and ultimately become Illini engineers with the power to change the world. Faculty who are named to endowed professorships and chairs receive a significant career honor that also elevates the stature of the department. The additional stipend they receive frees them to conduct innovative research not covered by traditional funding programs. And who better to freely innovate than the faculty at the nation’s number one program— some of the world’s experts in their fields?
Erich Adickes
Powered by your gifts, CEE at Illinois students and faculty can continue their tradition of excellence in teaching, research and service to society in the top program for civil and environmental engineering, CEE at Illinois.
cee.illinois.edu/alumni/gift
CEE at Illinois—Winter 2013 9
Ryan Altemare (BS 11, MS 12)
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hio native Ryan Altemare applied to half a dozen schools as a high school senior, but receiving a scholarship at Illinois for out-of-state students with outstanding academic records made his first choice possible. “I knew civil engineering was where I wanted to be, and Illinois, being number one, was my top target, but coming from out of state, it’s always more expensive,” he says. Once here, Altemare’s continued excellence in the transportation program earned him two department scholarships which also offered him opportunities to do research and pursue independent study. That led to an interest in construction management, which became his secondary concentration. “Aside from the financial benefits, the scholarships opened new doors that I might not have otherwise considered,” Altemare says. After two internships with the Ohio Department of Transportation, Altemare learned he loved the atmosphere of the construction site. “Out in the field in the middle of the action—it just really feels like that’s where my place is,” he says. Altemare was accepted into the Global Leaders in Construction Management (GLCM) program and completed his master’s in the department in December. Last year he traveled to Australia with the program, and this January he will participate in another GLCM trip to Turkey. In March, he will begin a job in Houston with ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company as a cost estimator. While at Illinois, Altemare participated extensively in Engineering Council, serving on the committee for Engineering Employment EXPO, a massive, twice-a-year job fair held on campus. He twice served as director of the fair. He participated in the Illini Pride groups like Orange Krush and was a member of the student chapters of the American Society of Civil Engineers and Chi Epsilon, the engineering honor society founded at the University of Illinois. Thinking back to his undergraduate days, Altemare recalls the department’s scholarship awards ceremony as motivating and particularly meaningful for him. “It was a very humbling experience for me to be recognized at the number one civil engineering school in the country,” he says. i
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A boost for our talented undergraduates “The biggest thing for me was the feeling of recognition. It was a very humbling experience for me to be recognized at the number one civil engineering school in the country.”
Erich Adickes
Ernest L. Docter Memorial Award (Illinois Asphalt Pavement Association) Grant W. Shaw Memorial Scholarship William E. O’Neil Award
“People might underestimate how inspiring and motivating it is when you get a scholarship,
Ugwem Eneyo CEE senior
Bob Zieba Memorial Scholarship Koch Athletic and Academic Scholarship Ernest L. Docter Memorial Award (Illinois Asphalt Pavement Association) Crawford Murphy Tilly Inc. Scholarship
because it shows that somebody—beyond maybe your parents—is recognizing your effort and your achievement, and it makes you want to keep going.”
s a high school student in southern Illinois, Ugwem Eneyo originally planned to study journalism and political science. The daughter of Nigerian-born parents who worked in engineering and computer science, Ugwem had a sudden change of heart during her senior year. “At the last minute I decided that I should stop running away from my destiny, so I applied to Illinois for engineering,” she laughs. Now a CEE senior with concentrations in environmental engineering and hydrology, Eneyo is busy applying to graduate school, with hopes of earning dual master’s degrees in environmental engineering and either law or public policy. “Ultimately I’m trying to address the relationship and the links between the environment, energy and economic development,” she says. While at Illinois, Eneyo has been active in the National Society of Black Engineers, Engineering Council, the Provost’s Student Advisory Board, the Dean’s Student Advisory Committee, the Illinois Student Senate as a member of the Committee for Environmental Sustainability, and significant volunteer work through the Morrill Engineering Program, which serves underrepresented groups in engineering. She is also an Engineering Learning Assistant for a class in clean water access for the Illinois Engineering FirstYear Experience program, which targets freshmen for project-based engineering education. Eneyo’s scholarships have given her more than just a financial boost. One included the opportunity to pursue an independent study in air quality issues surrounding the production of hot-mix asphalt. Another has fostered a relationship with a donor, who has visited campus to have lunch with her and encouraged her involvement in other professional activities. This connection with CEE alumni has inspired her to consider her relationship with the department as continuing beyond graduation. “I appreciate that people are remembering and considering the students that are following behind them,” she says. “It helps us understand the importance of why we should stay involved with the university afterwards, because we were on the receiving end at one point and it meant something to us.” i
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Laura DeHaan CEE Senior
“The awards ceremonies almost brought me to tears because it was really
Max Whitman APWA Memorial Scholarship Maude E. Eide Memorial Scholarship Make-a-Difference Award/Illinois Club Andrea J. Culumber Award NAWIC Scholarship Builder’s Foundation Scholarship Joshua Jared Hardy Scholarship
incredible to be a part of it and to see what other people have accomplished.”
By Stephanie H. Kim s the fifth of six children from Hinsdale, Ill., Laurie DeHaan found her source of motivation to excel as a student from words her father once casually spoke to her: “Failure is not an option.” “I don’t know if he knew that those words hung onto me for so long; that they’re so triumphant,” says DeHaan, a CEE senior with a primary focus in construction management, a secondary in sustainability and a minor in the Hoeft Technology and Management program. DeHaan initially applied to another university with the intent of majoring in architecture but realized that her interests aligned more with the civil engineering program at Illinois. “CEE is so broad. There are so many different career paths that you can take,” she says. DeHaan has done just that, excelling in her academics and contributing to the CEE community locally and internationally. She has been active in the Society of Women Engineers and Engineers without Borders’ Ntisaw Cameroon Water Partnership, once traveling to Cameroon for a three-week work visit. Currently, she is the construction manager of the Solar Decathlon China 2013 in partnership with Peking University. She is also the president of the Phi Sigma Rho Colony, a budding chapter of an engineering sorority that she founded on campus. “It’s a group of girls that understand the engineering curriculum is really hard,” she says. “So we still get the benefits of having a social community while having a support system.” Since her sophomore year, DeHaan has been recognized for her contribution and academic excellence through various scholarships, which she appreciates both for the financial help and for the recognition. But the value and significance of these accomplishments all came back to the person who motivated her in the very beginning. “It was nice to be able to tell my dad, ‘you don’t need to worry about finances. I got this’,” DeHaan says. i
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Undergrads get a jump on research with new CEE program By Tom Thoren (BS 12) EE undergraduates are gaining valuable research experience and insight into graduate school, thanks to the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program, launched last spring with the goal of enhancing undergraduate education. “The earlier we get them into the research mentality, the better they’re going to be because many of them have this wonderful creativity and a willingness to work with professors, but a lot of times, the research opportunities are pretty much only at the master’s level,” said Professor and Associate Head Liang Liu. The department contributes $2,000 for a student’s semester in the program— $1,500 to the student and $500 to the supervising professor. Students spend at least 10 hours per week on the research for 12 weeks during the fall and spring semester. They must devote at least 20 hours per week for six weeks during the summer break. At the end of their period with REU, students must turn in a final product, such as a report, presentation or a newly developed software code. Students may remain in the program for up to two semesters. The department’s goal is to fund approximately 40 undergraduate students per year in the REU program. Kate Stephens, a senior in environmental engineering and hydrology, participated in the REU program over the summer. She worked under Professor Wen-Tso Liu and his graduate student, Johnathan Moor, on their drinking water purification project. Stephens worked closely with Moor to monitor experimental water filters using microbial communities. They tested to see how well the microbes could break down the water’s ammonia. This is a desirable water pretreatment technique because the water would require less chlo-
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Kate Stephens, center, participated in the department’s new Research Experience for Undergraduates. She is pictured in the lab with Professor Wen-Tso Liu and Ph.D. student Johnathan Moor.
rination during the treatment process, meaning reduced costs and fewer harmful byproducts in the water. Stephens and Moor have three 6-foot-tall test columns on campus, and have also built a full-scale filter that is currently running tests at the Illinois American Water treatment plant on Bradley Avenue in Urbana. “If everything goes well, this could change the way that drinking water is treated,” Stephens said. “So it was really cool to be a part of something that’s very cutting-edge.” Stephens is now no longer part of the REU program, but instead works directly with Moor and Professor Wen-Tso Liu. They knew they would hire her on a continuing basis even before her time with the REU program was over, Moor said. Stephens’ self-motivation and independence allowed her to get the most out of the REU program, Wen-Tso Liu said. She took ownership of her area of the project, testing and monitoring the water content, and worked beyond her responsibilities to save Moor time, he said. “If she sees something, she’s going to
say something,” Moor said. “Or if she has a suggestion for how to make the process better, she’s going to voice that.” Before last summer, Stephens’ only experience with any sort of research was through her two years volunteering on Engineers Without Borders’ Guatemala Water Project. Since working with the REU program, she is able to “better understand what graduate school means,” she said. Stephens has not decided whether she wants to attend graduate school right away or work first, but as a result of her research experience she has decided to complete a thesis master’s program in environmental engineering at some point. No matter what a student’s thoughts about research are, Stephens said, all students should at least try research to find out for themselves if it is something they might enjoy. “(The REU program) is a really good way to get introduced to doing research,” she said. “If you’re going to school at the University of Illinois, and you’re at one of the top research institutions, it’s crazy not to try.” i
cee.illinois.edu/alumni/gift
Evgueni Filipov John W. Page Fellowship Jacob Karol Fellowship Sargent & Lundy Fellowship Mavis Fellowship National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship
W
hen Evgueni Filipov was looking at graduate programs, the structures student from Rensselaer Polytechnic had his choice of top-tier schools. A CEE at Illinois alumnus he met on an internship encouraged him to consider Illinois. Impressed by the quality of the faculty and research, Filipov added Illinois to his list. What clinched the deal was U of I’s fellowship offer. “The fellowship made a big impact at that time,” he says. “Funding was hard to come by; this was right when the economy started crashing.” Central Illinois’ cost of living allowed the funds to go farther than they would have elsewhere. During the years Filipov worked on his master’s, his fellowships covered half his expenses, and his job as a research assistant covered the rest. There was even some left over to allow him to visit family in his native Bulgaria. Filipov has excelled in grad school, publishing journal papers and presenting at conferences about his research on the utilization of elastomeric bearings to help bridges avoid damage during earthquakes. He earned a prestigious National Science Foundation fellowship to support his Ph.D. work, which applies computational mechanics, specifically topology optimization, to the design of buildings—using computer models to help engineers and architects find the best structure for earthquake resilience. “It’s a really novel approach,” he says. “We’re discovering new things we didn’t know before about how to build buildings.” Filipov has helped revitalize the student chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, which now offers frequent professional lectures on relevant topics. He serves as a teaching assistant for classes in structural design and finite element methods—good practice for his career goals of working in academia and continuing his research into making buildings more resilient using computer modeling. Partly because he has a CEE alumnus to thank for encouraging him to apply to Illinois and partly because CEE alumni have funded his graduate studies, the department’s extensive, supportive alumni network has made an impression on Filipov, who calls it a “selling point” for the department. “There’s a big network, a big department and a big culture here,” he says. i
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A critical tool for attracting promising graduate students “Probably the best way you could invest your money is in a young person’s mind. That person can go ahead and achieve great things one day and make you very proud. You’ll be putting your name on his resume. You’ll see that person on the news one day and think, ‘I funded that person.’”
Erich Adickes
MS 2012 PhD student
“When I came here and met all the faculty and students, they were all really friendly and welcoming, and I thought,
Aimee Gall
‘I really belong here.’”
MS 2010 PhD student
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n describing her work, Aimee Gall makes liberal use of the word “fun.” It’s not what you might expect when the subject is infectious viruses, but it expresses the CEE Ph.D. student’s enthusiasm for drinking water research. Gall first encountered the issue of safe water for developing regions as a mechanical engineering undergraduate at Ohio State University when she worked on securing a clean water system for a Honduran orphanage for children with HIV as part of an engineering service group. “I really started to love water,” she says. “I wanted to do good for people.” Shifting her focus to environmental engineering, she began applying both to grad schools and for a competitive National Science Foundation (NSF) research fellowship. Her research for that proposal led her to Professor Benito Mariñas, who took the time to share some information on his work with this Ohio State undergraduate mechanical engineering major he had never met. Gall ultimately won the NSF fellowship, which would support her Ph.D. studies. Her final selection of Illinois for grad school was based on her connection with Mariñas, a fellowship offer from the department to bridge the gap until the NSF fellowship kicked in and—most importantly—a visit, she says. “I received competitive offers from other schools, but what really drew me here was the visit,” Gall says. “I thought I was going to end up someplace warmer, but when I came here and met all the faculty and students, they were all really
friendly and welcoming, and I thought, ‘I really belong here.’ I didn’t really get that vibe from other places.” In addition, the low cost of living made her fellowship offer all the more attractive. “The offer I got here, I could actually live on, compared to the ones from the California schools,” she says. While at Illinois, Gall has served as a teaching assistant for Mariñas’ popular environmental lab course, which allows students to work on water projects in developing countries, and has made multiple trips to Mexico, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya. She is also involved with Engineers Without Borders and the department’s new Safe Global Water Institute, led by Mariñas. Her Ph.D. research, conducted under Mariñas and Professor Joanna Shisler, a virologist in U of I’s School of Molecular and Cellular Biology, seeks to understand viral inactivation on a molecular level. “We’re trying to figure out when you expose a virus to a disinfectant, what’s happening to make the virus non infectious—nobody knows,” she says. “We want to know how viruses are becoming inactivated so we can develop more effective, robust treatment technologies in the future.” Gall is still exploring career options. She might teach, work for a non-governmental organization or start a nonprofit. In any case, she has one clear goal: “Providing safe water for people. “This is where my passion lies,” she says. i
Erich Adickes
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Carver Fellowship Carollo Fellowship GAANN Graduate Research Fellowship
62 548 75 150 785
Number of CEE MS and PhD students receiving fellowships administered by the department or some part of the university in 2012. Total number of MS and PhD students in CEE in 2012.
Number of undergraduate scholarships awarded by the CEE department in 2012.
Approximate number of applicants for department undergraduate scholarships each year. Approximate number of undergraduate students in the CEE department in 2012.
cee.illinois.edu/alumni/gift
“This whole area was able to bloom, from what might have been a small-scale laboratory endeavor,
Fueling research innovation
because of the Newmark Chair.”
Professor Billie F. Spencer Nathan M. and Anne M. Newmark Endowed Chair in Civil Engineering Director, Newmark Structural Engineering Laboratory Director, Multi-Axial Full-Scale Sub-Structured Testing and Simulation Facility Director, Smart Structures Technology Laboratory
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rofessor Bill Spencer is arguably the world’s foremost expert in wireless smart sensing of infrastructure, the use of computerized sensors connected in networks to monitor structural health. His leadership in executing the world’s largest deployment of such a system—on the Jindo Bridge in South Korea—has made CEE at Illinois the leading university in this innovative field. And according to Spencer, the donors who funded his chair, the Nathan M. and Anne M. Newmark Endowed Chair in Civil Engineering, can claim some credit for making that possible. In addition to the honor, one of the benefits of an endowed chair is an annual stipend, which faculty can use at their discretion. Before the Jindo deployment Spencer had already established himself in the field of wireless smart sensors, but the chair funds took that research to the next level. “I didn’t have sufficient resources to participate in that deployment from my research contracts, and it was the Newmark Chair account that allowed us to lead that effort and position us as the number one university in wireless smart sensors for structural health monitoring,” Spencer says. “I’ve always had funding from the National Science Foundation for the basic research, but these demonstration projects are harder to get funding for. On the other hand, they really drove this research to a level of maturity that would be useable beyond what you would typically find in a laboratory. There was a huge benefit from having those resources available.” Spencer joined the department in 2002 from an endowed faculty position at Notre Dame. The promise of holding what was then the Newmark Professorship helped attract him to Illinois. “Illinois has a strong program anyway, from the faculty to the students to the research portfolio, but Newmark is one of the preeminent names in engineering, so the prestige, the honor of holding that professorship certainly was attractive,” he says. In 2004, additional gifts elevated that professorship, and Spencer was named the inaugural Newmark Chair. As with all gifts in support of academic research, the Newmark Chair has become the gift that keeps on giving, enabling numerous students to benefit from involvement with the project. For example, in 2009, Spencer hosted the Asia Pacific Summer School on Smart Structures Technology. “We were able to utilize the things we had developed in support of the Jindo Bridge project to form some of the laboratories for the 50 students who were here for that,” Spencer says. “This whole area was able to bloom, from what might have been a small-scale laboratory endeavor, because of the Newmark Chair.” i
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“Our department is a top-ranked department, and it needs to be able to attract the best people to its faculty ranks. There are far more accomplished people in our department than we have been able to recognize.”
Professor Praveen Kumar Colonel Harry F. and Frankie M. Lovell Endowed Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
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EE’s newest endowed professor, Professor Praveen Kumar, expects the additional funds available to him as the Colonel Harry F. and Frankie M. Lovell Endowed Professor to enable “high-risk, high-reward” research. Although he has held the professorship for less than a year, this international leader in hydrology already has plans for augmenting his very active research program. Having studied the effects of climate change on the hydrologic cycle, Kumar is interested in its effect on vector-borne diseases, illnesses that are carried by something, such as mosquitoes or birds. Climate change affects the life cycles of bugs and birds, as well as the parasites that live inside them that cause illness, Kumar says. “How do these changes interact to affect incidences of human health problems?” he says. “It’s a new area—people have been talking about it, thinking about it, for the past 8-10 years maybe—but there isn’t a consensus on the issues and the outcomes. Getting funding for [something like] this is a little challenging until you do the demonstrable work, and that takes a little bit of time. If you can actually do some research and prove it, then people are more amenable to say, ‘Okay, let’s take a chance on this.’” Another research area Kumar hopes to pursue with the professorship funds is in the area of hyperspectral remote sensing, a technology that measures texture in the landscape. “These instruments measure frequency bands that our eyes cannot see, so they reveal things about chemical composition and the structure of landscapes and vegetation characteristics which we would not otherwise be able to see,” he says. “The applications are many.” Kumar is working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which plans to launch a satellite with hyperspectral remote sensing capability in the next decade. Kumar was part of a team of researchers who used those tools to study the Mississippi Delta flooding of 2011. Now he is doing feasibility and proof-of-concept studies to explore ways to characterize extreme floods and droughts using these space-borne tools. Even more significant than the freedom to do exploratory research, says Kumar, is the honor attached to being named an endowed professor. “It’s a significant recognition for faculty in the department,” Kumar says. “In the whole university, there are only about 220 people who have professorships.” For an academic department to be able to extend that honor to faculty increases its preeminence and helps retain senior faculty, he says. “Our department is a top-ranked department, and it needs to be able to attract the best people to its faculty ranks. … There are far more accomplished people in our department than we have been able to recognize.” i
cee.illinois.edu/alumni/gift
CEE at Illinois—Winter 2013 17
“As the beneficiary of a
“I have a lot of fun helping young faculty
few scholarships while at
and graduate students, and it’s exciting
Illinois, upon graduation
to see the results they achieve.”
I made it my mission to donate those funds back to the department ‘tenfold.’ Having achieved that goal, I remain a committed annual donor and enjoy the satisfaction of knowing I am a small part of a great department. “ —Anonymous alumni donor “We really enjoy meeting and helping these extremely bright engineers. Providing scholarships to students you actually get to know is a gas.” —Walter and Carole Crowley “This scholarship is very personal. I’m first-generation ethnic, and I’m the first woman in my family to graduate from college. I just felt that it was time to give back and provide that opportunity to someone else.” —Doris Willmer (BS 72, MS 73)
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Alumnus, former professor funds current transportation research with “Skunk Works” Nichole Evans o say CEE Professor Emeritus Barry Dempsey (BS 60, MS 66, PhD 69) bleeds orange and blue is an understatement. He grew up in Illinois cheering on Illini sports teams and then came to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he roomed with now-fellow CEE Professor Emeritus Marshall Thompson. After receiving his Ph.D. from Illinois in 1969, Dempsey accepted a faculty position in the department. He worked his way up through the faculty ranks, enjoyed a successful career in airport engineering, teaching Airport Facilities and Design for 30 years and directing the FAA Center of Excellence for Airport Pavement Research for 10 years. Dempsey became an emeritus professor in 1999, but has continued to stay very active in the field and involved with the university. When asked why he chose to stay at the university for his entire career, he says simply, “Illinois is the best.” Dempsey wants to ensure CEE at Illinois stays the best and has started two funding campaigns—one for CEE transportation faculty to perform innovative research, and another that provides for continued improvements at CEE’s Advanced Transportation Research and Engineering Laboratory (ATREL) on the former Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, 15 miles north of the University of Illinois campus. Dempsey was the major force for the development and operation of ATREL and served as its first director. Along with other transportation faculty, he has used ATREL as a catalyst for the university to reach new levels in transportation research. by
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Dempsey first had the idea to create a fund for faculty to do innovative research several years ago when he was an active faculty member. He saw that opportunities were dwindling for faculty to conduct truly outside-of-the-box research to address pressing transportation problems of the day. “Often, to get research funding from outside agencies, there needs to be sufficient evidence to prove that an idea has validity,” he says. “But there are some ideas so innovative that there isn’t yet much published research to support it.” To allow CEE transportation faculty to investigate truly innovative ideas, Dempsey created a program similar to Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs, which is better known by the name Skunk Works®. The concept is simple: researchers receive seed money and a great deal of autonomy to investigate advanced research questions. While there is a certain level of risk that the research won’t prove successful, there is also potential that the research will have a great payoff. Two CEE faculty have benefitted from Dempsey’s program so far. Four years ago, Professor Bill Buttlar first received support from Dempsey to investigate the environmental reasons for cracking in asphalt. As part of his research, Buttlar developed an acoustics emission sensor, which is a device that acts as a stethoscope for asphalt and can diagnose the condition of pavement using sound waves. Because he was able to develop this instrument without constraints, Buttlar had sufficient data to go forward and apply for additional funding from agencies such as the National
Erich Adickes
Professor Emeritus Barry Dempsey, right, with professors Jeff Roesler, left, and Bill Buttlar.
Science Foundation. To date, Buttlar has received more than a quarter of a million dollars in external funding to develop his acoustic emission sensors and is currently working with a manufacturer to make them available commercially. CEE faculty member and alumnus Jeffery Roesler (BS 92, MS 94, PhD 98) was named the second recipient of Dempsey’s research fund. Roesler is investigating internal curing of concrete for pavements. Up to now, the method has been used primarily in structural and bridge applications to try to overcome early-age cracking problems associated with high-performance concrete, but Roesler believes concrete pavement also experiences early-age cracking related to inadequate surface curing. Using lightweight aggregates as the internal curing agent, Roesler is studying the fundamental movement of water in concrete using various imaging techniques. Dempsey’s seed funds will help with this proof-of-concept study—
basic work that must be done to establish the need for further research and secure additional funding from external funding agencies. “If you go outside, you’ll find cracks in the road surface.” Roesler says. “People don’t necessarily connect the cracking they see with poor curing. Until you can show that you can reduce those cracks early on with these techniques, you’re not going to convince people they have a problem.” In addition to providing faculty with the opportunity to begin innovative research paths, Dempsey is also invested in ensuring ATREL continues to grow and that the CEE transportation group flourishes. A few years ago, Dempsey spearheaded the effort to begin the ATREL Endowment Campaign. The goal of this campaign is to raise $2 million that will allow ATREL to continue to have the most advanced and specialized equipment, and maintain continued innovation in
transportation research. To reach this goal, Dempsey has generously pledged $500,000 toward the campaign and is inviting others to contribute. Imad Al-Qadi, Founder Professor of Engineering and Director of the Illinois Center for Transportation located at ATREL, says, “Professor Dempsey has been instrumental in shaping the transportation group for CEE at Illinois. Thanks to his vision, we have one of the most preeminent transportation research facilities in the world. Many of the world’s most accomplished transportation engineers have a connection to ATREL, and many of the brightest transportation engineers of the future will pass through ATREL.” While Dempsey’s legacy at the university, in CEE, and at ATREL is unquestionable, he simply enjoys seeing others benefit. “I have a lot of fun helping young faculty and graduate students, and it’s exciting to see the results they achieve,” he says. i
cee.illinois.edu/alumni/gift
Alumnus Paul Koch (BS 66, MS 68) explains why he and his family give to CEE
CEE Innovation Grants encourage short-term, high-impact research By Leanne Lucas
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ive faculty members in CEE are the first recipients of CEE Innovation Grants, offered with department funds to encourage short-duration, high-impact research projects by CEE faculty. Applicants from among the faculty apply for the grants with proposals, and winning projects are funded at approximately $30,000.
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hese years at the University are the foundation—a good CEE term!—of a lifetime relationship between each student and the faculty and staff, his or her peers, and all other alums. For me and our family, the number of these relationships never stops growing and has been the cornerstone of my personal life and my professional career. I have always proudly carried my now-tattered, “University of Illinois, College of Engineering” notebook to business and professional meetings, and what a wonderful way it has been to connect to other professionals, who see it and say, "I'm an ILLINI, too!" Immediately, we have a personal and, potentially, a professional relationship. In my career as a consulting engineer, these two relationships are inseparable. Given all that my wife, my sons and I have received and continue to receive from our experiences with the University, it was very easy for us to try to give back, in some small way, and offer the same opportunities to others. When I was fortunate to sell my consulting engineering practice 12 years ago, it was only appropriate that we apply some of the fruits of that transaction to help plant seeds for others to achieve the same opportunity. We established the Koch Family Academic Scholarship for Civil and Environmental Engineering, with an emphasis on “environmental,” which was my chosen CEE field. It goes without saying that many others have made similar contributions in gratitude for all that the University—in all its forms—has done to secure these opportunities for each of us. But more importantly, the gift of giving has immediate rewards as well, in meeting and learning about the wonderful students who are the recipients of our scholarship. Taking advantage of sharing lunch with each of them and their families is something we truly enjoy, and it allows us to continue to expand the Illini traditions of scholarship, caring, commitment, imagination and appreciation for what our experiences have meant to all of us, who proudly call ourselves Illini. 20 cee.illinois.edu cee.illinois.edu 20
Angry Birds and granular simulation
Professor Youssef Hashash is developing a unique method for granular material simulation. “If I’m trying to understand the behavior of soil, I need to represent the individual soil particles,” Hashash said. “The classical way for doing that is known as the discrete element method. But that method is computationally very expensive, the analysis is time-consuming, and you often need massive computer banks to run the analysis.” After watching his daughter play Angry Birds, Hashash studied algorithms the gaming industry uses. “Those particles are moving quite fast, almost in real time. I thought, they know something we don’t know,” he said. “These were alternative methods for doing the calculations, but they had limitations from an engineering viewpoint. So we used the new classes of algorithms from the gaming industry as our starting point and added the capability to provide the fidelity needed for engineering pur-
Hashash
poses. “We were successful. We are able to use a PC to run our analyses 100 times faster than before and get reasonably good results. Have we solved all the problems? No. But in principle, we have demonstrated that this approach works.” Hashash is the John Burkitt Webb Faculty Scholar.
A new approach to testing at the nanoscale
Assistant Professor Paramita Mondal and Associate Professor John Popovics are taking a new approach to the study of construction materials—in particular, concrete. “If you want to understand the important properties of a material on a large scale, you have to see what you have at the microscopic scale,” Popovics said. “One type of newer technology is called a nanoindenter. The unique power of this tool is that the measurements it takes are on a nanoscale.” “Think of it as a probe that you can
Popovics
Mondal
After watching his daughter play Angry Birds, Professor Youssef Hashash looked into the algorithms the gaming industry uses. “I thought, they know something we don’t know.” poke into your material,” Mondal said. ”Depending on how much force you apply, you can determine certain mechanical behaviors of the material right at that spot. Then you move to a different spot, measure the property at that spot, and the mechanical behaviors are very different. Because concrete is such a complicated, heterogeneous material, measuring the property at different locations is very important.” The team also plans to study concrete that has been intentionally heat-damaged, in order to understand the link between the way concrete behaves when it’s damaged and when it is not.
Creating smart soft materials
Oscar Lopez-Pamies and Glaucio Paulino are studying a way to create “smart” soft materials. “Humans are made out of soft material,” said Lopez-Pamies. “So essentially, it’s like creating artificial muscles. The rubbery materials we are after are smart in that if you stimulate them with an electrical field, they deform, and when you remove the stimulation they go
back to their original shape.” One of the challenges with the materials is that they currently operate only with high voltages, he said. “You cannot use them for applications right now,” he said. “One way to remove this limitation is to mix these materials with metallic conducting particles. These filled materials are able to operate at lower voltages appropriate for applications. We understand qualitatively why adding conducting particles works, but need to understand this phenomenon fundamentally at a quantitative level.” The goal of the project is to develop theory and computational models that will allow them to design the electroactive materials from the bottom up. “How do we choose the rubbery material, the particles and their interphasial bonding?” Lopez-Pamies said. “When you bond metallic particles to soft materials there is a layer of material that behaves in a different way. That’s what we’re trying to characterize. The entire behavior depends critically on that interphase. Paulino is a Donald Biggar Willet Professor of Engineering. i
Make a difference Help CEE make a difference by making your gift today. There are many ways to give: Named Gifts
Endowed gifts support faculty, students, and academic programs in perpetuity, as the principal of the fund is never used. As named funds, they are legacies to your generosity or to whomever you wish to honor.
Fund a Chair
$2,000,000 A named chair allows the holder to conduct innovative research and explore novel teaching opportunities. It is a high honor for distinguished professors and an incomparable tool with which to attract and retain scholars of brilliance.
Fund a Professorship
$500,000 Endowed professorships allow CEE to continue to enhance its intellectual community by helping accomplished scholars in their pursuit of knowledge and in their education of engineers and academics of the future.
Fund a Fellowship
$300,000 The recruitment of top graduate students allows for a robust, top-tier research program. Fellowships help to provide a pipeline of academic excellence for the next generation of faculty members and practitioners. While CEE at Illinois has rich research offerings to entice students, we must also compete against the financial incentives offered by other institutions.
Fund a Scholarship
$50,000 Need- and merit-based scholarships enrich the CEE program by helping to attract and reward students with diverse talents and experiences. With escalating tuition, scholarships can make a world-class education possible for those who may have only dreamed of coming to Illinois.
CEE Trust
Gifts to the CEE Trust can be used at the discretion of the department to fund such initiatives as the Research Experience for Undergraduates and CEE Innovation Grants. Gifts can be given outright, or made over time. In addition to cash, securities, and real estate, you can support CEE as part of your overall financial, tax, and estate planning with deferred gifts such as bequests, charitable trusts and annuities, pooled income funds, retained life estates, retirement accounts, and life insurance. We have planned giving advisers who can work with you at no cost to arrange options most suitable to you.
Lopez-Pamies
Paulino
For more information, please contact: John Kelley jekelley@illinois.edu (217) 333-5120
cee.illinois.edu/alumni/gift CEE at Illinois—Winter 2013
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Student Organizations Some of the many student organizations for civil and environmental engineers at Illinois tell what they’re up to and how alumni can get involved. A more extensive list of CEE student organizations and links to their websites appear here: cee.illinois.edu/student_organizations. American Concrete Institute The American Concrete Institute (ACI) Student Chapter fosters interest in all aspects of concrete design to undergraduate and graduate students. During our regular meetings, our members gain perspective from industrial and academic guest lecturers who discuss unique challenges of concrete in a wide array of environments and the latest in research results. The student chapter is also involved with ACI Illinois, the professional liaison chapter centered in Chicago. Our members attend their general meetings and network with industry professionals. A joint meeting is planned for Champaign in early 2013 which is open to all civil engineering students and provides an excellent networking opportunity. Our members also have the opportunity to attend the national ACI Conventions this year in Toronto during the fall semester and in Minneapolis in the spring semester. For further information, please contact Chapter President Travis Welt at welt1@illinois.edu. American Society of Civil Engineers The student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is one of the larger civil engineering groups on campus, with about 120 active members. ASCE hosts a wide variety of events, such as concrete canoe and steel bridge. However, ASCE also extends beyond these competitions. Our student chapter brings civil engineers of all concentrations and backgrounds together for a variety of social and informational events. We hold monthly meetings that feature distinguished speakers. We also have less formal functions such as happy hours and Professor Luncheons, which allow members to interact with the local professional chapter and CEE faculty in a more relaxed environment. Overall, ASCE aims to provide students networking opportunities and life skills, while promoting stronger unity and pride across all facets of civil engineering. For more information, contact our chapter president, Raphael Stern, at stern5@illinois.edu. American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association The student chapter of the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA) is celebrating another successful year. Our goal is to educate students about the railroad industry and foster the development of industry leaders. This year, 43 student members traveled to Chicago in mid-September to visit the annual AREMA conference and exposition. Members participated in technical presentations, 22
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vender exhibits, and career and networking opportunities. In addition to the conference trip, students have taken part in a number of other technical and social activities including field trips to see railroad project sites and cookouts with other engineering societies. A recent group of students traveled to Huntingburg, Ind., to witness a one-day bridge reconstruction project on the Norfolk Southern Railway. Upcoming events include several guest speakers and participation in the spring Engineering Open House. For more information, contact Brennan Caughron at aremauiuc@gmail.com. Chi Epsilon Chi Epsilon Civil Engineering Honor Society has had a great start of the semester with 126 students eligible for initiation. Our initiate kickoff smoker went smoothly and the initiation process is under way. The lineup for this semester’s general meetings includes presentations from Kiewit, Weston Solutions, and Greeley and Hansen. We also have several service and social events planned including park cleanups, a wine and cheese mixer with U of I professors, and a volleyball match against the mechanical engineering honor society. Chi Epsilon is always looking for scholarship sponsors and guest speakers at our meetings. If interested, please contact President Bethany Myelle at myelle1@illinois.edu. Concrete Canoe Team The Concrete Canoe Team, led by team captains Arielle Malinowski and Raphael Stern, had a successful 2011-2012 season with their canoe, Maverick, placing second in Oral Presentation, second in Races, second in Design Paper, third in Aesthetics, and third overall at the Great Lakes Regional Competition hosted by Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. The Concrete Canoe Team continues to strive for excellence in their pursuit of a national title. This season the National Concrete Canoe Competition will be hosted by the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. We are seeking support from alumni and companies to sponsor our efforts. Please contact the Concrete Canoe Team captains Hong Kim hongkim3@illinois.edu or Min Yinminyin2@illinois.edu with any questions. Construction Management Association of America The Construction Management Association of America student chapter at the University of Illinois was started in 2010. Our mission is to provide engaging construction-re-
lated activities including lectures, site visits and networking events that prepare students for a professional career in the construction industry. In October, we attended the Rising CM Conference in Chicago, and we are currently working to get members more interaction with construction professionals. To learn more get involved please contact the president, Dan Gancarz, at dgancar2@illinois.edu. Deep Foundations Institute The Deep Foundations Institute (DFI) student chapter allows student members to learn about the planning, design and construction aspects of deep foundations and deep excavations. For the second consecutive year, DFI is hosting a field trip to Atlas Tubing in Chicago. Students will tour the steel and pile manufacturing plant in the morning and attend lecture seminars in the afternoon. Please contact Navid Jafari, chapter president, at njafari2@illinois.edu to learn more about upcoming events and get involved. Earthquake Engineering Research Institute The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) is a leading technical society in earthquake risk and engineering research. The EERI chapter gives any student the ability to make contacts and learn about new subjects in earthquake engineering. Throughout the year, EERI hosts visiting professionals for guest lectures. The recent range of topics has included engineering, risk analysis and policy. Another event is the Seismic Design Competition. EERI holds the competition at their annual national conference, which will be in Seattle this February. The U of I has participated for the last three years and performed consistently well. Undergraduates who join the design team are introduced to earthquake engineering concepts, construct a 5-foot-tall balsa wood building, and give a presentation at the conference. Finally, their structure is tested on a shake table to simulate a real earthquake. For more information, contact Ryan Leigh leigh3@illinois.edu. Geotechnical Engineering Student Organization The U of I chapter of the ASCE Geo-Institute graduate student organization provides geotechnical graduate students with a forum to pursue and discuss their research interests in an educational and constructive environment as well as allow them to develop the leadership and interpersonal skills they will need as future geotechnical engineers. During
the past year, members of our GESO group travelled to Chicago to interview Clyde N. Baker Jr. (P.E., S.E., H.M.ASCE, NAE), one of the profession’s leading geotechnical engineers with more than 50 years of expertise and an international reputation for the design, analysis and construction of deep foundations for high-rise structures. The visit and the subsequent publication of the interview with Baker in the GeoInstitute’s professional magazine GeoStrata was a tremendous experience and a valuable learning opportunity for the chapter’s students. The chapter continues to have frequent Research Roundtables,”which include student member presentations on their current research and professional speakers from the private or public sector. Finally, GESO sent a team to the annual GeoCongress conference in Oakland, Calif., in March to compete in the GeoWall competition and other student competitions. GESO plans to attend GeoCongress again this spring. Institute of Transportation Engineers The student chapter of Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) is part of an international community of transportation professionals working around the world to meet safety and mobility needs. Students join ITE to learn about exciting advancements and challenging problems in this field, network with peers, and have fun. Activities this year include participating in the 61st Annual Traffic Engineering and Safety Conference and concurrent student-practitioner forum, presentations about the Champaign-Urbana Urbanized Area Transportation Study, speakers from consulting firms and academia, student social events, and field trips. In the spring, ITE will create a transportation-related exhibit to be featured during Engineering Open House. ITE is very excited for the upcoming Midwestern District Traffic Bowl Competition in June. Last summer, U of I’s team won at the district level and traveled to Atlanta to compete against international teams. For more information, contact iteuiuc@gmail.com. International Association for HydroEnvironment Engineering and Research IAHR is an independent organization of engineers and water specialists who work in the hydro-environmental sciences and their practical application. The Illinois IAHR student chapter organizes informal collaborative activities with neighboring student chapters (e.g. Iowa, Pittsburgh), field trips to visit local hydraulic works in conjunction with classes, professional development seminars and social activities which include the annual Hydro T-Shirt design contest, annual pumpkin carving contest and different cookouts and mixers. Our student chapter is committed to education of the general public as well. Every year we present a range of exhibits at Engineering Open House. Write to iahr.iwra@gmail.com.
created a year-long partnership with the High School of St. Thomas More, visiting them every month to introduce basic structural engineering concepts. Our newest addition this year has been a design project. We partnered with Bridges to Prosperity to design, fund, manage, and ultimately construct a footbridge for an underprivileged community in Albania, receiving technical guidance from professionals and CEE professors. As practice, we joined the Bridge to China student chapter on campus to design a footbridge for Allerton Park. For information, contact Paul Papazisi at papazis1@illinois.edu. International Water Resources Association The student chapter of the International Water Resources Association at Illinois is dedicated to promoting education and collaborating in research to enhance understanding in water resources. We raise awareness of water resources issues locally and globally through community events. Additionally, we hold professional development seminars and host social and networking events. Activities this year will include a community service project in the local watershed, new Engineering Open House exhibits, professional development seminars, and a spring break field trip. We invite alumni to contribute to our efforts by participating in info sessions, seminars, and informal meetings with students. For information, contact Allison Goodwell at goodwel2@illinois.edu. Steel Bridge Team The Steel Bridge team is back to work after another successful season. Last year, our team placed third in the Great Lakes Regional Competition at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., qualifying for the national competition—the third time in the past four years. This year, our team is looking forward to even greater success as we adapt our design and construction strategy to better suit the new rules. We hope to both qualify for and be competitive at the national competition in Seattle, Wash. Please contact team captain Alexander Lakocy (lakocy1@illinois.edu) with questions. Structural Engineers Association The Structural Engineers Association (SEA) student chapter hosts a variety of events to help our members learn about structural engineering and network. Our fall general meetings featured structural engineers from Thornton Tomasetti, SOM, HNTB, and Versabar. We visited the Ikenberry Commons residency hall construction site, held a presentation on hotdipped galvanized steel, visited companies for job shadows, and hosted an etiquette dinner. We also held luncheons with professors Larry Fahnestock and Dan Abrams, as well as many social events including a welcome back BBQ and a multi-organization broomball tournament. Our Outreach committee
U.S. Green Building Council USGBC Students is the official student chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. We recruit, connect and equip the next generation of green building leaders by empowering them to transform their campuses, communities and careers. USGBC Students provides a way for hundreds of young leaders to come together and participate in hands-on green building experiences. USGBC Students at Illinois helps students integrate sustainability themes into their coursework and advocate for sustainable university practices and policies. We provide LEED workshops and study sessions to prepare for the LEED Green Associate Exam. We also organize monthly general meetings to educate our members about recent green building projects. We organized an event for Green Apple Day of Service and attended the annual Greenbuild International Conference and Expo in San Francisco. We are also working on a design competition called the Eco Shack Competition. For information, write usgbcstudents.uiuc@gmail.com.
2013 Concrete Canoe Nationals to be held at Illinois June 17-22 This year, the University of Illinois will host the American Society of Civil Engineers National Concrete Canoe Competition June 17-22. Competing canoes will be displayed on the Engineering Quad, and many presentations will be open to the public. The races will be held at nearby Homer Lake. For more information as plans develop, check cee.illinois.edu/events.
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Summer of big numbers Study tour highlights China’s sustainable energy initiatives By Daniel Malsom ometimes I forget that almost 7 billion people live on our planet. Then, when I do remember, I still fail to fully understand. How can I grasp just how large of a number 7 billion is? This past May I participated in a summer study tour to a country that has its own 10-digit population number: China. We spent a month total in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and a couple of smaller cities nearby. Each city we visited had its own set of huge numbers as well: population, economic productivity, waste generation, energy consumption. The last of these numbers has become a growing concern for China. The country has been the world’s largest consumer of energy for two years now, and rising living standards in the country suggest that energy consumption will continue to increase. Coal is a plentiful and inexpen-
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sive resource, but its use for nearly 70 percent of China’s total power generation has led to crippling air pollution and a massive carbon footprint. Fortunately, with concerns come changes, and those changes were what attracted our group to the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Our aim was to learn how a country with a population over four times that of the United States was beginning to provide cleaner energy for its people. We spent most of our time at the Yuquan campus of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. The urban campus served as our home base. We lived there, learned about energy research going on there, and from there we began our day trips to nearby energy facilities. It seemed to me that China has big plans for renewable energy. We toured a very diverse sample of renewable energy power plants, and almost all of what we saw boasted significant financial support from either the Chinese government or private enterprise. We visited six different facilities altogether. On our first weekend, we visited both the Yiwu Urban Waste Incineration Thermal Power Plant and a pig farm that had its own biogas digester. The waste incineration plant processed trash from the city of more than 2 million people
A street vendor cooking food in Hangzhou. 24
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The writer, pictured by the Great Wall.
and used the energy released from incineration to generate electricity. Coal still made up 17 percent of the total mass burned, but the plant was researching the possibility of replacing all of the coal with biomass instead. The pig farm was much more of a small-scale operation; the owners had a waste treatment plant on their property. They sold the solid waste as fertilizer and burned the methane gas to reduce their farm’s energy dependence. Even this small farm had received national recognition from the government for its energy innovation. Two of the sites we visited were dams that could generate massive amounts of electricity. One dam that we visited had flooded a massive valley when it was built. The dam and lake looked similar to any Tennessee Valley Authority lake in the United States. The other dam that we visited was not at all familiar. To get to it, the Tian Huang Ping Pumped Storage Power Plant, we had to take a van into the center of a mountain. The main mechanics of the plant were located inside of the
mountain, directly beneath a large reservoir. During the night, when electricity is cheaper, the plant pumps water up to the reservoir. Then, when demand is high, the water runs down the mountain, and the company can sell electricity back to the grid at a profit. I had never heard of the concept before, and it seemed to me like a clever solution to the problem of wasted energy production during times of lower electricity demand. We also visited the offices of an LED manufacturing company and the factory floor of a medium-sized PV solar cell manufacturing company. The solar cell factory was the most interesting stop on our trip. I had heard extensive debate in the United States regarding the cost and quality trade-offs of Chinese solar cells. As people had said, the cells were incredibly cheap as far as solar is concerned. The plant we visited sold their cells for less than $1 per watt of electricity generation potential. I was impressed overall, but I was surprised by two aspects of the manufacturing process. The assembly process involved upwards of 50 people working at different stations around the factory floor. I had expected to see machines, not people, putting the cells together. Aside from the solar cell lamination process, every part of the assembly line involved more human work than mechanization. Furthermore, after the cells had been assembled, the company did extensive durability testing. The solar panels had to endure heat fluctuations, high humidity, and tests that simulated the effects of ocean spray and salt damage. While I have not visited other solar manufacturing facilities, I felt that the thoroughness of what I saw met or exceeded the expectations for quality that I would have for a similar plant in the United States. Beyond the energy tours, the trip also provided time for us to be tourists, or at least foreigners lost in a bustling city. I usually felt like the latter. For all of the 1.3 billion people in China, the country still had a “Wild Wild West” feel to it, and I was
definitely an out-of-towner. The streets of Hangzhou almost seemed rugged: cars honking at each other and maneuvering with little regard for rules of the road, small carts selling plates of steaming hot food that cost next to nothing, and construction everywhere. In some parts of the city it seemed like each building had its own crane towering overhead. In Shanghai and Beijing we saw more of the same: boom town after boom town. Some things were harder to see than others, though, because the air pollution throughout urban China was unlike anything else that I had ever experienced. On the Great Wall the smog was thick enough to get me coughing and to blur the distinguishable features of mountainsides no more than one mile away. Two weeks later we watched from the Oriental Pearl TV Tower as the sun set over the Shanghai skyline. The haze there was more reminiscent of a thick London fog that settled between the buildings. Upon my return to the United States, the blue skies were
Indigo cloth drying outside a fabric shop in Wuzhen, a canal city and popular tourist destination.
one of the first things I noticed. The China that I saw was vibrant and bustling with people on the move. Energy consumption has become a necessity in urban China in order for that bustle to continue, but the cost of energy even in the near future is hazier than the Shanghai sky. After returning from my trip, I gathered that China understands that. It may be a few decades before widespread changes take effect, but other parts of the world should take note. In the world’s top country in terms of population and energy consumption, interest in renewable energy is alive, and it is growing. i Daniel Malsom is a junior in CEE. He plans to focus on transportation and sustainability within his degree and is also working toward a minor in Urban and Regional Planning. CEE at Illinois—Winter 2013 25
Researchers study the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in New York City
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nami,” he said. “Clearly, the storm came in with very high surges that the infrastructure was simply not designed to accommodate,” Hashash said. “We had a combination of a superstorm, high tide, and the gradual rise in sea levels that is taking us to territory that we have not seen before. … Now we have to start thinking seriously about how to make our cities resilient to deal with these storms that are anticipated more frequently.” Assistant Professor Dan Work and his team made the trip to Manhattan to deploy a new system that can provide valuable, real-time information to police, emergency personnel and the public during major events and disasters. Called TrafficTurk, the system enables anyone with a smart phone to easily collect traffic data using a specially designed application. Work’s team held its first large-scale deployment of TrafficTurk in Champaign-Urbana on Oct. 27, Homecoming weekend at the U of I. At that time, more than 100 students were stationed around town to use the app and send data back to “mission control” in Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory. The followA TrafficTurk researcher uses the smart phone app developed at Iling weekend found the linois to monitor traffic in New York City days after the hurricane. team in Times Square, documenting post-Sanand industry examined tunnels, subways, dy traffic patterns with the help of Columbasements, bridge foundations, and bia University students. They also invited coastal structures to learn how they be- the public to download the app and use haved during and after the flooding. The it anywhere in Manhattan. They are anagroup split up into teams to cover Man- lyzingthe collected data to see what they hattan, New Jersey, Staten Island, Rocka- can learn about post-disaster traffic patway Beach and Queens. Hashash himself terns. spent time in lower Manhattan and StatTrafficTurk promises to revolutionize en Island, documenting the aftermath of traffic monitoring during extreme conthe flooding. On Staten Island, “the scene gestion events, Work said. For decades, was reminiscent of the aftermath of a tsu- traffic engineers have relied on manual
wo CEE professors traveled to New York City in the wake of Hurricane Sandy to study the superstorm’s effects on geotechnical structures and traffic. Professor Youssef Hashash led a team of engineers who studied the performance of geotechnical infrastructure in New York and New Jersey. Assistant Professor Dan Work deployed a new traffic monitoring application he designed to help traffic move more smoothly during major events. Both professors are members of the faculty in the department’s new program in Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure Systems. Hashash’s trip was a mission for the NSF-sponsored program GEER, Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance. The team of engineers from academia
Above, Professor Youssef Hashash indicates the height of the water line from storm surge flooding in Manhattan after Hurricane Sandy.
data collection on surface streets, using tools called turning movement counters. The devices are expensive, though, and municipalities could never afford to give them to hundreds of people at once for real-time monitoring, he said. TrafficTurk employs an application that essentially turns a smart phone into a turning movement counter. The application can be downloaded from a website and utilized by as many people as necessary, depending on the size of the event. The information recorded can be made immediately available. “Anybody with a phone can do it— the hardware cost is now removed,” Work says. “You still need to pay people to collect data, but you can collect it at every intersection simultaneously, and it can be used to generate state-of-the art traffic analytics to enable better real-time traffic management.” The system’s name was inspired by a chess-playing machine from the 18th century called the Mechanical Turk, which was secretly controlled by a world-class chess expert hidden inside. As with that machine, Work says, the secret to TrafficTurk’s success is the people who operate it. “For event-driven congestion, TrafficTurk incentivizes users to collect data at scales which are not possible using today’s technology,” he says. “Eventually I’d like to see event-driven traffic congestion monitored and managed efficiently, anywhere in the world,” he says. i
Smart phone app will aid postdisaster rescue
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icture this: An earthquake strikes, and you’re trapped inside a damaged building. You pull out your smart phone to call for help, but you can’t get a signal. Suddenly your screen lights up, and an application starts asking questions about your condition. “Are you hurt?” “Are you trapped?” Elsewhere in the building, another victim is unconscious and unable to answer questions, but the app can tell he is lying motionless and transmit that information plus his location to emergency personnel. The information gathered from victims will help first responders organize a quick, efficient rescue operation. That’s the vision of the Illinois researchers who developed the application, which they named iRescue, short for Illinois Rescue. Led by CEE Ph.D. student Hyungchul Yoon (MS CEE 12), the group includes Computer Science Ph.D. student
Reza Shiftehfar (MS CEE 09, MS CS 10), CEE Professor Bill Spencer Jr., CS Professor Gul Agha and Beckman Institute Professor Mark Nelson. Recent disasters around the world have illuminated the need Hyungchul Yoon, left, and Reza Shiftehfar display screen shots from for better rescue pro- the smart phone app they developed to assist emergency personnel in cedures and technol- rescuing people trapped in buildings after disasters. ogy to support them, Yoon said. Before developing iRescue, the team consulted of device for detecting human life inside with professionals at the Illinois Fire Ser- buildings,” Yoon said. “But everybody has vice Institute to find out what information a cell phone.” would be most helpful for first respond“That small device is more powerful ers. Location and condition of victims than the computer you used five years topped the list. ago,” Shiftehfar says. i “[First responders] don’t have any type Full story at cee.illinois.edu/irescue.
Team studies track components for shared-use rail lines
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s the U.S. continues to develop higher-speed passenger railway networks, CEE researchers within the Rail Transportation and Engineering Center (RailTEC) are exploring how to use the country’s already extensive freight railway systems so they can also accommodate higherspeed passenger trains that operate at speeds of more than 100 miles per hour. As part of a research initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), the CEE department is in the midst of a $2.4 million interdisciplinary research project that aims to better understand the unique demands placed on rail infrastructure when subjected to both higherspeed passenger and freight trains, as well as to improve the design of a critical track component, the concrete crosstie and elastic fastening system. The focus of the work is not true high-speed rail, in which trains travel at more than 150 miles per hour, but rail lines on which trains will travel approximately 80-125 mph. Led by
RailTEC instructor Riley Edwards inspects sensors installed by Illinois researchers for testing with the Track Loading Vehicle.
instructor and RailTEC researcher J. Riley Edwards, CEE researchers in transportation, structures, and materials are collaborating on the project.
The demands that freight or higherspeed passenger trains alone place on railroads are understood for the most part, but what is not understood is how these different car types stress railroad infrastructure when they share the same rail corridor. The main objective of the project, Edwards said, is to understand and improve concrete crossties and fastening systems in these shared-use corridors. The timber crossties commonly found on North American railroads do not exhibit critical materials properties to withstand loads typical of these corridors for extended life cycles, said Professor David Lange of the construction materials area. Concrete crossties have three main advantages, Lange said: their higher mass counteracts the train’s loads and inertia, they are very precisely manufactured, and they are more durable. —Thomas Thoren i Full story at cee.illinois.edu/pueblo_rail_ project. CEE at Illinois—Winter 2013 27
department news
The student chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) won the Traffic Bowl championship for the 11-state Midwestern District and competed for the grand championship in Atlanta in August. Student participants were Kelly Dunne, Craig Jakobsen and Kyle Schweizer. Mohammad Nourbakhsh, treasurer of ITE, served as their coach. The prize was $1,000.
CEE graduate students Victoria Boyd and Xin Wang won the Clean Energy Education Fellowship. The award is given to students who are passionate about promoting and researching clean energy literacy. Professor William Buttlar (MS 92, PhD 96) has been appointed to the University of Illinois’ Coursera Course Review Committee. Coursera is an online service offering free courses from top universities. The committee will develop a system for faculty to propose their courses as Coursera offerings and selection criteria for Coursera inclusion. The University of Illinois is the first land-grant university to participate in Coursera. CEE student and soccer player Jenna Carosio received the prestigious Big Ten Conference Medal of Honor at the Fighting Illini Scholar-Athlete Awards Reception. It is given annually to a senior student-athlete who demonstrates proficiency in scholarship and athletics. Assistant Professor Nora El-Gohary has received a National Science Foundation CAREER award to develop computer models for assessing the value of infrastructure projects in a way that takes into account the perspectives of various stakeholders. The project aims at advancing knowledge of how to plan, design, construct and operate civil infrastructure systems to maximize their collective life cycle value.
Professor Mark Rood visited with a number of CEE Environmental Engineering and Science alumni in Hong Kong this summer. Rood, left, is pictured with with Dr. Xiangru Zhang, Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering, Coordinator of Postgraduate Studies in the Environmental Engineering Program, Coordinator of Minor Program in Environmental Sustainability and Management, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Professor Marcelo García was a presenter at Chicago Ideas Week 2012 in October, at which he spoke about water issues in the city. García is the Chester and Helen Siess Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and has served as Director of the Ven Te Chow Hydrosystems Laboratory in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering since 1997. García’s talk was part of a presentation titled “Water: the Ripple Effect,” which involved six speakers including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. CEE Ph.D student Chih-Ting Kuo and graduate student Xinyu Zhang tied for second place with their project “The Green Water System” in Schneider Electric’s Go Green in the City, an international global competition for university business and engineering students to present innovative energy solutions. Graduate student Sahid R. Lausell won the Esmilla Graduate Student Writing Award. The award is presented annually by the environmental faculty to a master’s degree student for exemplary writing within a class. Lausell received the award for her term paper
Gurfinkel marks 50 years of teaching At the end of summer 2012, Professor Emeritus German Gurfinkel (MS 57, PhD 66) completed 50 consecutive years of teaching in the department, During that time, he taught structural engineering to more than 6,000 students in courses such as Design of Tall Building Structures, Reinforced Concrete, Prestressed Concrete, Steel, and Wood Engineering. Gurfinkel also taught for two years (1959-61) in the Civil Engineering Department of the University of Havana.
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from CEE444 in spring 2012 describing and interpreting a journal article from Applied and Environmental Microbiology. CEE Ph.D. student Seung Jae Lee won fourth place in the student poster competition at the 2012 Joint Conference of the Engineering Mechanics Institute and 11th American Society of Civil Engineers Joint Specialty Conference on Probabilistic Mechanics and Structural Reliability. Lee’s poster, titled “An impulse-based discrete element simulation for efficient granular dynamics,” won in the category New Trends and Applications in Computational Mechanics and Engineering Sciences. Lee’s adviser is Professor Youssef Hashash. Associate Professor Scott Olson (MS 95, PhD 01) was selected for a 2012 Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers “for pioneering research on liquefaction, particularly related to the shear strength and normalized shear strength of liquefied soils using field case history back-analysis, laboratory element testing, and centrifuge testing.” Professor Glaucio Paulino received the International Association of Computational Mechanics (IACM) Fellows Award 2012. The award recognizes individuals with a distinguished record of research, accomplishment and publication in computational mechanics and demonstrated support of the IACM. Professor Erol Tutumluer won the 2012 Best Paper Award from the Geology and Properties of Earth Materials Section of the Transportation Research Board for his paper, “Gradation Effects Influencing Mechanical Properties of Aggregate Base/Granular Subbase Materials in Minnesota.” Tutumluer also delivered the keynote address at the 2nd International Conference on Transportation Geotechnics, presented at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan, Sept. 10-12.
in memoriam
New faculty
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hmed E. Elbanna’s research focuses on developing computational and analytical models for complex phenomena, such as friction, adhesion and fracture, in multi-scale systems such as crustal faults and human bone. He holds a Ph.D. in civil engineering (2011) and an M.S. in applied mechanics (2006), both from the California Institute of Technology, and an M.S. in structural engineering (2005) and B.S. in civil engineering (2003) from Cairo University. Elbanna joined the faculty as an assistant professor in December 2012.
Elbanna
Eric Kerestes (BS 04, MS 06) died Aug. 14. He was 30. Kerestes was a district business solutions manager at Peter Kiewit and Sons and a student at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
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George M. Hansen (BS 63) died July 22. He was 73. Hansen was the owner and operator of Morgan Excavating in Walnut, Ill.
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ani Golparvar-Fard’s research interests include creating and developing computer vision, image processing and machine learning methods to automatically track building performance, monitor construction performance, perform condition assessment of existing infrastructure, and reconstruct 3D/4D models from static images as well as video streams. He earned his Ph.D. in civil engineering and an M.S. in computer science, both from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2010); his M.A.S. in civil engineering from the University of British Columbia (2006); and his B.S. and first M.S. in civil engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology (2002). He joined the faculty as an assistant professor in December 2012.
2000s
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Marion C. Skouby (MS 62) died May 30. He was 80. Skouby was a geotechnical engineer and was recognized as an expert in construction dewatering. He served in the U.S. Army in Korea and was a member of Chi Epsilon, Missouri Society of Professional Engineers and the American Society of Civil Engineers.
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egan Konar’s research focuses on how water and food systems are linked through international trade. She is interested in the potential for international Konar trade to buffer climate and socio-economic shocks. Konar holds a Ph.D. (2012) and M.S. (2009) in civil and environmental engineering from Princeton University, an M.S. in water science, policy and management from the University of Oxford (2005), and a B.S. in conservation and resource studies from the University of California at Berkeley (2002). Currently a postdoctoral researcher in CEE, she will join the faculty as an assistant professor in August 2013.
Leonard E. Olson (BS 54) died March 12. He was 79. Karel Puffer (MS 58) died April 5. He was 86. Robert E. Woods (BS 58) died July 20. He was 76. Woods worked with the Indiana Department of Transportation for 40 years.
1940s Fall job fair lunch sponsors We thank the following companies for sponsoring lunch at the fall job fair. Silver Civiltech Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates Inc. Bronze Bury and Partners Clayco Manhard Consulting Ltd. The Walsh Group
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Correction: One of our spring lunch sponsors, Ciorba Group, was misidentified in the summer issue. We are grateful to Ciorba for being a Bronze sponsor and regret the error.
Gene L. Donner (BS 47) died July 17, 2011. He was 86. Dale E. Francis (BS 49) died June 30. He was 86. Francis was the former owner of Francis Associates civil engineering firm of Paris, Ill., founded in 1963. A former City of Paris mayor, he was instrumental in the founding of the Edgar County Homeless Organization and in the implementation of Paris’ Music in the Park program. All deaths occurred in 2012 unless otherwise noted. CEE at Illinois—Winter 2013 29
alumni news
2010s
Mani Golparvar-Fard (PhD 10), along with co-authors Feniosky Peña-Mora and Silvio Savarese, received the 2011 Best Paper Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers Journal of Construction Engineering and Management for the paper titled, “Integrated Sequential As-Built and As-Planned Representation with D4AR Tools in Support of DecisionMaking Tasks in the AEC/FM Industry.”
Help students, faculty with a design project Help CEE students gain real-world experience in their classes. Assist faculty in developing a class design project. For more information, contact Stan Herrin, CEEAA Board of Directors, sherrin@illinois.edu.
Brian Hill (BS 09, MS 11) was selected as one of two national recipients for the 2012 Association of Asphalt Paving Technologists scholarship.
Yeh honored by College
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.T. Geoffrey Yeh (BS 53), who made the naming gift to establish the Yeh Student Center in Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory, was inducted into the Engineering at Illinois Hall of Fame on September 14. Yeh, chair of Hsin Chong International Holdings Ltd., was recognized for making “significant and lasting contributions to the construction and financial sectors in Hong Kong, serving as chair of the Hsin Chong Group of Companies, including Hsin Chong Construction Group, Ltd., a publicly listed company, until his retirement in 2002.”
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Gopalraj Manitraj (MS 11) was hired by Fehr-Graham & Associates as a staff engineer in their Rochelle, Ill., office. Manitraj is working on “Move Illinois,” a $12 billion reconstruction project of I-90.
2000s
Kurt Bialobreski, P.E., (BS 01), a traffic engineer at Hanson Professional Services Inc., in Peoria, Ill., was named the Young Engineer of the Year by the American Society of Civil Engineers–Central Illinois Section. Bialobreski was recognized for his engineering achievements, including his participation in Peoria’s Warehouse District and Washington Street revitalization projects; serving on the design team for the first dual roundabout on an Illinois highway; and designing the first high-intensity activated crosswalk signal in the greater Peoria area. Lindsay D. Hausman, P.E., (BS 02) was named Chief Aviation Engineer for the Springfield, Ill., office of Hanson Professional Services Inc. She participates in small and large design projects for Hanson’s aviation clients throughout the Midwest and Southeast. She began her aviation career working on planning, design and construction assignments for Chicago-area airports. Ryan Mumm, P.E., S.E., (BS 02, MS 06), a structural engineer with Sodemann and Associates Inc. in Champaign, has received the Young Engineer of the Year Award from the Illinois Society of Professional Engineers. The award is given to young members who have made outstanding contributions to their profession and community. Mumm is responsible for water and wastewater infrastructure, new building construction and building rehabilitation/demolition and roadway design and rehabilitation projects. Arthur Pazdan (BS 00), Senior Project Engineer, was recognized as one of the Top 40 Under 40 for 2012 by Mass Transit magazine. This honor acknowledges professionals who have made significant contributions to the public transit industry.
Kevin Spitz, P.E., (BS 08), a civil engineer at Hanson Professional Services Inc. in Chicago, recently earned his professional engineer license in Illinois. Since he joined Hanson in 2008, Spitz has been involved with a variety of civil engineering projects, including the Interstate 74 Mississippi River crossing near the Quad Cities and the Interstate 90 widening and reconstruction in Illinois’ Boone, Kane and McHenry counties. Dennis G. Wilkinson, P.E., S.E., (BS 02) was named Chief Facilities Structural Engineer for the Springfield, Ill., office of Hanson Professional Services Inc.
1990s
Mathew A. Fletcher, P.E., S.E., (BS 94) was recently named assistant vice president at Hanson Professional Services Inc. in Peoria, Ill. Fletcher joined the firm in 1999 and has specialized experience in planning, designing, bidding and constructing railroad bridges nationwide. Zachary Kates, P.E., (BS 97) was promoted to vice president in the Washington, D.C., office of Thornton Tomasetti, the international engineering firm. Kates has 14 years of experience in the structural design of new buildings and the renovation of existing and historic structures. Marcie Schatz, P.E., (BS 94) was recently named the new Deputy City Manager of Naperville, Ill. Since 1995, Schatz oversaw Naperville’s civil and traffic engineering, planning and development services. She became the City’s Transportation and Traffic Team Leader in 2001 and the City’s Transportation Engineering and Development Director in 2004.
Nominations invited: CEE alumni awards If you know of a deserving colleague who graduated from CEE at Illinois, consider nominating him or her for a CEE Alumni Association award. The Distinguished Alumnus/Alumna Award and the Young Alumnus/Alumna Achievement Award recognize those who have distinguished themselves in the field at different career stages. The next deadline is Aug. 1, 2013. For more information, please visit our alumni awards page of the CEE website at cee.illinois.edu/CEEAAawards.
Daniel J. Whalen, P.E. (BS 84, MS 85), was recently named vice president of the market principal of energy and industry services at Hanson Professional Services Inc. in Springfield, Ill.
Baker joins CEE adjunct faculty
W
illiam F. Baker (MS 80), P.E., S.E., Structural Engineering Partner for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP in Chicago, has joined the faculty of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an adjunct professor. The winner of numerous awards for structural innovation, Baker is an expert in the engineering of tall buildings and long-span roof structures. He is best known for developing the “buttressed core” structural system for Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest manmade structure.
1980s
Ilker Adiguzel (PhD 83), recently won the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Sustainability Hero Award. As Director of the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, Adiguzel leads a staff of 350 professionals who conduct a $90 million annual research program addressing environmental quality and infrastructure for military installations. He has demonstrated a history of outstanding performance in leading the Army to implement sustainable practices while reflecting a comprehensive approach to energy and environmental management through innovative strategies, practices, and outreach. Anthony M. Baratta, P.E., (BS 89) was presented the “Illinois Government Engineer of the Year Award for 2012” by the Illinois Society of Professional Engineers (ISPE) on July 21, 2012 during the annual ISPE Conference held in Bloomington, Ill.
Mark Wylie, P.E., S.E., (BS 82, MS 84) was selected for the 2012 Distinguished Service Award by the Illinois Society of Professional Engineers. This award recognizes a member who has made an outstanding contribution in a single area of society achievement. Wylie currently serves as manager of the Structural Engineering Department of Farnsworth Group in Bloomington, Ill. and has designed a wide variety of transportation-related structures including state highway, county bridges and retaining walls.
1970s
John Coombe, P.E., S.E., (MS 78), the executive vice president and chief operating officer at Hanson Professional Services Inc., was honored with the Executive Engineer (ExecEng) designation from the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC). Michael P. Fallon, P.E., (BS 75) recently received the highest Department of the Army honorary award, The Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service, for his exceptional performance of duty while serving as Director of Programs, Southwestern Division, US Army Corps of Engineers, Dallas, Texas, from Oct. 2005 through April 2012. He led the successful delivery of more than $8.4 billion in military construction and base realignment and closure projects while planning, executing, operating and maintaining a diverse $5 billion annual civil works program. Fallon recently retired from the US Army Corps of Engineers after 37 years of Federal Service that included assignments in various Corps districts and divisions throughout the US and overseas. Thomas E. Havenar, P.E., S.E., (BS 79) was named Chief Bridge Engineer for Hanson Professional Services Inc. in Springfield, Ill. He has more than 30 years of experience designing bridges and structural projects nationwide. Doris I. Willmer, P.E., (BS 72, MS 73), Founder and President, Willmer Engineering Inc., Atlanta, Ga., was named Chapter Honor Member by the students of Chi Epsilon, the engineering honor society founded at the University of Illinois. Willmer is married to CEE alumnus Jim Willmer (BS 71, MS 72).
CEEAA Board celebrates 50 years
T
he year 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Alumni Association Board. CEE at Illinois cordially invites you to return to campus for a celebration. Please consider supporting the CEE Alumni Association Board Scholarship Fund, established by the Board to mark its 50th Anniversary. The scholarship will be awarded to a CEE student with a record of service to the department. Chicago Alumni Dinner March 6, 2013 CEEAA Board of Directors 50th Anniversary Alumni Reception September 6, 2013 CEEAA Board of Directors 50th Anniversary Tailgate September 7
cee.illinois.edu/events
Duane Yockey, P.E. (BS 71) was awarded the Illinois Award by the Illinois Society of Professional Engineers (ISPE). It is ISPE’s highest award for meritorious service to the engineering profession and/or for noteworthy contributions in the interest of ISPE. He is the President of Lewis, Yockey & Brown in Bloomington, Ill.
1960s Willmer
Alfred J. Hendron Jr. (BS 59, MS 60) was selected by the Geo-Institute to present the 2013 Karl Terzaghi Lecture. This honor recognizes a distinguished engineer’s contributions to field of soils and geomaterials. CEE at Illinois—Winter 2013 31
Old Masters
Engineering giants of the department’s history
John W. Briscoe
(1917-2001) Engineer, Educator, Skillful Administrator and Civic Leader By John D. Haltiwanger and William J. Hall
J
ohn William Briscoe, the son of Walter Cole Briscoe and Gertrude Gaile (McKean) Briscoe, was born on February 24, 1917, in Westfield, Ill. He was raised on the family farm and graduated from high school in 1935. He attended Hanover College in Hanover, Ind., from 1935 until 1937, when he transferred to the University of Illinois. He graduated with a B.S. in Ceramic Engineering in From 1965 June 1940. After until 1967, one year of industrial experihe served as ence as a ceramic Associate engineer, Briscoe entered military Provost of the service in June 1941 and served University, and until March 1946, in 1967 he was attaining the rank of Major in appointed Vice the U.S. Air Force. Chancellor for In the Air Force, he accumulated Administrative more than 2,000 Affairs for flight hours while the Urbana serving as a flight instructor and as Campus. an aircraft engineering officer. On July 4, 1942, while stationed at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, Briscoe married Mary Catherine (Kay) Moore, whom he had met while a student at the University of Illinois. Following his release from military service, Briscoe returned to the University of Illinois in February 1946 and was awarded a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering in 1947. After a short period of professional service with the Chicago, Burlington and 32
cee.illinois.edu
Quincy Railroad, Briscoe joined the faculty of the University of Illinois in September 1948 as an Instructor in Civil Engineering. From March 1951 until February 1953, his service with the University was interrupted by a recall to duty with the Air Force during the Korean War, where he served as Deputy Division Engineer for the Military Air Transport Service, Hickam Field, Hawaii. Upon his return to the University, he completed his graduate studies and was awarded the M.S. degree in Civil Engineering in June of 1953. In 1953, Briscoe was appointed Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering. He progressed rapidly through the academic ranks, being appointed Professor and Assistant Head of the Department of Civil Engineering in 1957. In 1959, he was named Associate Head of Civil Engineering, in which position he served until 1965. From 1965 until 1967, he served as Associate Provost of the University, and in 1967 he was appointed Vice Chancellor
for Administrative Affairs for the Urbana Campus, a position he held until 1975 when he resigned to return to teaching in Civil Engineering. He retired from active service on the faculty in 1981, at which time he was appointed Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering. Although Briscoe’s first love, and clearly the primary focus of his interest and attention, was the University of Illinois and, in particular, its Department of Civil Engineering, he also had many other interests. Consistent with his strong sense of both civic and professional responsibility, he served in numerous public service positions, including the Chairmanship of the National Park Service Committee on Historic American Engineering Records, Member of the History and Heritage Committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Board of Directors of the Urbana Chamber of Commerce, Alderman of the City of Urbana, Member of the Urbana Rotary Club, Member of the Board of Directors of the United Fund of Champaign County, Member of the Board of Directors of the Champaign County Historical Museum, Trustee, Deacon, and Elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Urbana, and numerous other civic assignments. His professional society memberships included The American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society for Engineering Education, the American Railway Engineering Association, the American Concrete Institute, the Society for the History of Technology, the Society for Industrial Archeology, and the Association for the Preservation of Technology. His primary nonprofessional interests included United States Civil War history, genealogy, and woodworking. Briscoe died on August 23, 2001, in Urbana, Ill. i
Corporate and Foundation Donors The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is proud of its strong ties to industry and practicing engineers. We gratefully acknowledge the corporations, foundations and professional associations that contributed to CEE from July 1, 2011, to June 30, 2012. This list includes organizations that made gifts directly to the department, as well as those who matched gifts made by their employees. CEE Corporate Partners are denoted in bold.
3M ABSG Consulting Inc. Accutest Laboratories AECOM Alfred Benesch & Co. AMEC Earth & Environmental Inc. Ameren American Institute of Steel Construction American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association American Society of Civil Engineers American Society of Civil Engineers Central Illinois Section Applied Pavement Technology Inc. Arcadis Association of American Railroads Barr Engineering Co. Baxter & Woodman Inc. Bechtel Corp. Belfor Environmental BNSF Railway Co. The Boeing Co. Bowman Barrett and Associates Inc. Burns & McDonnell Carollo Engineers Inc. Caterpillar Foundation CB&I Industries CDM Smith Cedar Street Charitable Foundation Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health LLC Century Group Inc. CETCO Environmental Chevron Corp. CH2M Hill Ciorba Group Clark Dietz Inc. Clean Air Task Force Clean Harbors Environmental Services CN Conestoga-Rovers & Associates Inc. Crawford, Murphy & Tilly Inc. CSX Transportation Inc. Deep Foundations Institute Dell Employee Giving Program Donohue & Associates Donald & Patricia Manhard Charitable Foundation Earthquake Engineering Research Institute Edison International Emitec Inc. EMR Inc. Engineering Employment Expo Enkon Information Systems Inc. Envirocon Inc.
Environmental Restoration LLC Environmental Works Inc. EnviroScience Inc. Epstein ERM-West Inc. Exelon ExxonMobil Corp. ExxonMobil Foundation Fabricated Geomembrane Institute F.H. Paschen, S.N. Nielsen & Associates LLC Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund The Fluor Foundation Fundacao Padre Leonel Franca Gannett Fleming Companies GE Foundation GEI Consultants Inc. Geo-Cleanse International Inc. Geosyntec Consultants Golder Associates Golf Course Builders Association Foundation The Greater Cincinnati Foundation Greeley and Hansen LLC Hanson Professional Services Inc. Hatch Mott MacDonald HDR Engineering Inc. HMG Engineers Inc. HNTB Corp. Holcim (U.S.) Inc. Hulcher Services Inc. H. W. Lochner Inc. IBM Corp. IBM Matching Grants Program Illinois-American Water Illinois Asphalt Pavement Association Illinois Association of County Engineers Inc. Illinois Ready Mixed Concrete Association Illinois Road & Transportation Builders Association Road Builder Charities Illinois Section ITE Illinois Society of Professional Engineers Illinois Tool Works Foundation IMEC Technologies Inc. Industry Advancement Foundation Central Illinois Builders Chapter Ingenii Inc. JL Arnold Engineering Inc. JRW Bioremediation LLC Kennedy-Jenks Consultants Inc. Lancaster Laboratories Inc. Langan Engineering & Environmental Services Inc. LB Foster Friction Management Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc. Marshall Miller & Associates Inc. Micro-Blaze Microbial Products
Milhouse Engineering & Construction MWH National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association Inc. Navitrade Structured Finance LLC Network for Good Norfolk Southern Foundation NRC Environmental Services The O’Neil Foundation O’Neil Industries Inc. OSI Environmental LLC Oil Skimmers Inc. Pacadar SA Pace Analytical Services Inc. Petro-Polys Inc. Pinnacle Engineering Inc. Poplar Smogpros Polystar Containment Inc. Prestressed Concrete Institute The Procter & Gamble Fund Raths, Raths & Johnson Inc. Ricondo & Associates RJN Group Inc. The RJN Foundation Inc. Road Science ArrMaz Custom Chemicals S.C. Johnson Fund Inc. Seneca Companies Shannon & Wilson Inc. Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure The Sidney Epstein and Sondra Berman Epstein Foundation Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP SpillX LLC St. Paul United Church of Christ SWS Environmental Services Teng and Associates Inc. TestAmerica Laboratories Inc. TranSystems Corp. Transportation Technology Center Inc. TRC Trotter and Associates Inc. TSVC Inc. Turkpetrol Foundation Turner Construction Co. Turner Corp. Unilever United States Inc. Union Pacific Railroad URS Corp. V3 Companies of Illinois Ltd. Walker Parking Consultants/Engineers Inc. Walsh Construction Co. The Watkins Family Foundation W.E. O’Neil Construction Co. Wight & Co. Wiss Janney Elstner Associates Inc. CEE at Illinois—Winter 2013 33
Sponsored Research
Photos: Alex Bragorgos
Research is an important part of the mission of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The many and varied projects of our faculty contribute to knowledge, enhance the education of our students, and improve the practice of civil and environmental engineering. On this page we acknowledge companies and organizations that are currently providing research funding in the department (through September 2012). Listed are the sponsoring agencies, the faculty members who are conducting the research, and project names.
34
Investigator
Funding Agency
Project Title
Abrams, Daniel P
National Science Foundation
NEESR-CR: Hybrid Masonry Seismic Structural Systems
Al-Qadi, Imad
Applied Pavement Technology Inc
Sustainable Aspects of Asphalt and Concrete Pavements in the Design Construction Repair and Rehabilitation of Highway Pavement
Al-Qadi, Imad
Federal Highway Administration
Impact of Wide Base Tires on Pavements a National Study
Al-Qadi, Imad
Virginia Transportation Research Council
Validation of Hot Poured Crack Sealant Performance Based Guidelines
Al-Qadi, Imad
Akzo Nobel Surface Chemistry LLC
Early-Age Performance of Warm Mix Asphalt (WMA) with Rediset WMX Additives
Al-Qadi, Imad
IL Department of Transportation
Illinois COSIM 2012 Update
Al-Qadi, Imad
IL Department of Transportation
ICT Program Management FY13
Al-Qadi, Imad
IL Department of Transportation
Funding Set Aside for BS & MS Students
Al-Qadi, Imad
IL Department of Transportation
Best Practices for Implementing Tack Coat TRP Recommendations
Al-Qadi, Imad
IL Department of Transportation
Asphalt Binder Additives Modifiers of Moisture Sensitivity in HMA
Al-Qadi, Imad
IL Department of Transportation
Special Projects Engineering
Al-Qadi, Imad
IL Department of Transportation
Information Technology Support
Al-Qadi, Imad
IL Department of Transportation
Technology Transfer and Editorial Support
Al-Qadi, Imad
IL Department of Transportation
Thin Quiet Long Lasting Hi Friction Surface Layer
Al-Qadi, Imad
IL Department of Transportation
Illinois Center for Transportation
Al-Qadi, Imad
IL State Toll Highway
Support for Pavement Research at UIUC Proposal to the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority 2010
Andrawes, Bassem
US National Science Foundation
CAREER: Innovative Confinement Technology for Strong Main Shock-Aftershock Damage Mitigation
Barkan, Christopher
Trustees of Purdue University
NEXTRANS: Integrated Hazardous Materials Transportation Safety Risk Management Framework
Barkan, Christopher
Federal Highway Administration
Dwight Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship
Barkan, Christopher
US Department of Transportation
National University Rail NURail Center A Proposal for a Tier 1 University Transportation Center
Barkan, Christopher
Federal Highway Administration
Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship
Barkan, Christopher
Engineering Systems, Inc.
Accident Performance Data of Bulk Packages Used for Hazardous Material
Barkan, Christopher
IL Department of Transportation
A Preliminary Feasibility Study for the Chicago Champaign Link in the Midwest High Speed Rail Network
Barkan, Christopher
Federal Highway Administration
Dwight Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship
Benekohal, Rahim F
Trustees of Purdue University
DNEXTRANS: Optimized Active Traffic Management and Speed Harmonization in Work Zones
Benekohal, Rahim F
Trustees of Purdue University
NEXTRANS: Dynamic Multi Modal Multi-Objective Intersection Signal Priority Optimization
Benekohal, Rahim F
Trustees of Purdue University
NEXTRANS: Agent Based Real-Time Signal Coordination in Congested Networks
Benekohal, Rahim F
IL Department of Transportation
Training and Implementing Findings of Queue and Users Costs in Highway Work Zones-Phase 2
Benekohal, Rahim F
IL Department of Transportation
Safety Benefits of Implementing Adaptive Signal Control Technologies
Bergman, Lawrence A
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Structural Logic Tailoring Stiffness and Damping of Large Scale Structures Via Passive Nonlinear Targeted Energy Transfer
Bond, Tami C
University of California - Irvine
Characterization of Emissions From Small Variable Solid Fuel Combustion Sources for Determining Global Emissions and Climate Impact
Bond, Tami C
US Department of Energy
Isolating Weakly and Strongly-Absorbing Classes of Carbonaceous Aerosol: Optical Properties Abundance and Life Cycle
Bond, Tami C
US Environmental Protection Agency
Linking Regional Emission Changes With Multiple Impact Measures Through Direct And Cloud-Related Forcing Estimates
Bond, Tami C
Pacific Northwest National Lab
Harmonized Emission And Activity Databases For 1850-2010
Bond, Tami C
US Environmental Protection Agency
Global to Urban Models for Minimizing Air Quality and Climate Impacts of Freight Choice
cee.illinois.edu
Investigator
Funding Agency
Project Title
Bond, Tami C
US National Science Foundation
A Chemical History of Anthropogenic Input to the Atmosphere Throughout the Industrial Era
Bond, Tami C
NASA Shared Services Center
Bridging The Last Few Kilometers: Accounting for Subgrid Mixing and Spatial Gradients in Global Aersol Models
Buttlar, William G
Trustees of Purdue University
NEXTRANS: Integration of Smart-Phone-Based Pavement Roughness Data Collection Tool with Asset Managment System
Buttlar, William G
Federal Aviation Administration
Testing, Modeling, and Support for FAA Reflective Cracking Study
Buttlar, William G
US National Science Foundation
GOALI: A Hybrid Failure Approach Using Digital Image Correlation for Functionally Graded Thin-Bonded Overlays
Buttlar, William G
Road Science LLC
Crack Resistance and Bonding Optimization Methods for Thin and Ultra-Thin Bonded Wearing Courses
Buttlar, William G
IL Department of Transportation
Distance Technology Transfer Course Content Development
Buttlar, William G
IL Department of Transportation
Designing Producing & Constructing Fine-Graded HMA in IL
Cai, Ximing
Sandia National Lab
Integrated Climate-Water Resources-Human Impacts Modeling
Cai, Ximing
Trustees of Purdue University
Global Impacts, Second Gen Biofuels in the Context of Other Energy Technologies and Alternative Economic and Climate Change Policy Options
Cai, Ximing
US National Science Foundation
Interdependence Resilience and Sustainability of Infrastructures for Biofuel Development
Cai, Ximing
NASA Shared Services Center
Developing Seasonal Predictive Capability For Drought Mitigation Decision Support System
Cai, Ximing
US National Science Foundation
Planning for Drought Preparedness in the Watershed Context: A Risk-Based Decision Analysis
Cai, Ximing
US National Science Foundation
CAREER: Quantifying Environmental Ecological Relationships for Watershed Sustainability Analysis
Cai, Ximing
International Food Policy Research Institute
Impacts of Climate Extremes on Future Water and Food Security
Duarte, Armando
Air Force Office of Scientific Research
An Adaptive Multiscale Generalized Finite Element Method for Large Scale Simulations
Duarte, Armando
US National Science Foundation
GOALI: Validated Multiscale Simulations of Ceramic Matrix Composites for Power Generation
Edwards, John Riley
Trustees of Purdue University
Design of Abrasion Resistant Concrete Railway Crosstie Rail Seats
Edwards, John Riley
TRB/IDEA Program Office
Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship
Edwards, John Riley
Federal Railroad Administration
Improved Concrete Crossties and Fastening Systems for US High Speed Passenger Rail and Joint Passenger/Freight Corridors
Edwards, John Riley
Amsted Rail, Inc
Testing of Concrete Crosstie Fastening Systems
Edwards, John Riley
Amsted Rail, Inc
Testing of Concrete Crosstie Fasting Systems
El-Gohary, Nora
US National Science Foundation
Deontic Modeling and Natural Language Processing for Automated Environmental and Green Compliance Checking
El-Gohary, Nora
IL Department of Transportation
Incorporating NEPA into the IDOT and MPO Planning Process
El-Rayes, Khaled A
IL Department of Transportation
Effects of Flaggers and Spotters in Directing Work Zone Traffic for Illinois Multi-Lane Highways
El-Rayes, Khaled A
IL Department of Transportation
Green Friendly BMPs for Interstate Rest Areas Phase 2
Fahnestock, Larry
US National Science Foundation
Reserve Capacity in New and Existing Low-Ductility Steel Braced Frames
Fahnestock, Larry
US National Science Foundation
Structural Integrity of Steel Gravity Framing Systems
Fahnestock, Larry
University of Washington
Smart and Resilient Steel Walls for Reducing Earthquake Impacts
Fahnestock, Larry
American Institute of Steel Construction
Seismic Steel Design in the East: Balancing Strength Ductility and Reserve Capacity
García, Marcelo H
Oklahoma State Univ
Meander/CONCEPTS Model Application
García, Marcelo H
Office of Naval Research
Characterization of Bed Morphodynamics Using Multi Beam Echo Sounding and Wavelet Transform Analysis
García, Marcelo H
USDA Agricultural Research Service
Enhancement Of The Channel Evolution Model Concepts For Predicting Lateral Channel Migration
García, Marcelo H
US Department of Interior
INT 04ERAG0004
García, Marcelo H
US Department of Interior
Collocation Lease for Office Space in North Campus Parking Deck
García, Marcelo H
Metropolitan Water Reclamation
Modeling - Phase II of the Mainstream Des Plaines TARP System
García, Marcelo H
Exelon Business Services Company
Development of a Hydrodynamic and Thermal Model for Clinton Lake Illinois
Hashash, Youssef M A
University of Colorado
Seismic Response of Shallow Underground Structures in Dense Urban Environments
Hashash, Youssef M A
US National Science Foundation
GOALI: Performance of Deep and Wide Excavations in Congested Urban Areas
Hashash, Youssef M A
University of California Berkeley
Geotechnical Working Group Integration Project
Hashash, Youssef M A
US National Science Foundation
Toward an Integrated Computational-Experimental Laboratory Testing Framework for Soil Behavior Characterization and Modeling
Herricks, Edwin E
Federal Aviation Administration
CEAT Airport Safety Management Program
Herricks, Edwin E
Federal Aviation Administration
Center of Excellence for Airport Technology Low Cost Surveillance System Program
Herricks, Edwin E
Federal Aviation Administration
Center of Excellence for Airport Technology Avian Radar Assessments
Herricks, Edwin E
Federal Aviation Administration
Proposal for Wildlife Hazard and Safety Technology Research
Herricks, Edwin E
Federal Aviation Administration
Center of Excellence for Airport Technology FOD Program Support
Kuchma, Daniel A
University of Washington
Hybrid Precast Wall Systems for Seismic Regions
Kumar, Praveen
University of Michigan
Sustainable Environment through Actionable Data
CEE at Illinois—Winter 2013 35
36
Investigator
Funding Agency
Project Title
Kumar, Praveen
US National Science Foundation
RAPID: Mississippi Flood of 2011 - Investigation of Initial Impact on the Landscape
Lafave, James M
IL State Toll Highway
Integral Abutment Bridge Study
Lafave, James M
IL Department of Transportation
Analysis of Superstructures of Integral Abutment Bridges
Lafave, James M
IL Department of Transportation
Earthquake Resisting System Bridge Design
Lange, David A
Kansas State Univ
Freeze-Thaw Performance of Concrete Railroad Ties
Lange, David A
US National Science Foundation
EAGER: Computed Tomography of Early Age Structure of Hydrated Portland Cement
Lange, David A
Silica Fume Association
Development of Optimal High Performance Concrete Mixture to Address Concrete Tie Rail Seat Deterioration
Lange, David A
FAA William J Hughes Technical Center
Center of Excellence for Airport Technology
Lange, David A
S.T.A.T.E Testing LLC
Investigation of High-Performance Concrete Materials for Bridge Decks
Lange, David A
BPC Airport Partners
The Center of Excellence for Airport Technology A Partnership in Research and Outreach O'Hare Modernization Program
Liu, Wen-Tso
US Geological Survey
Development of a Rapid and Quantitative Genetic-Based Asian Carp Detection Method
Liu, Wen-Tso
The AWWA Research Foundation
Development of a Microbial Standard for Assessment of Performance of Total Coliform Analytical Methods
Liu, Wen-Tso
PepsiCo International
Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactors Using Advanced Membrane for Treating Industrial and Domestic Wastewater
Liu, Wen-Tso
The AWWA Research Foundation
Developing a Genetic Based Approach that Complements Enzyme Based Coliform Methods
Liu, Wen-Tso
The AWWA Research Foundation
Microbial Ecology of Drinking Water Distribution System Joint Research Project with Singapore Pulic Utilities Board
Long, James H
Wisconsin Dept of Transportation
Static Pile Load Tests on Driven Piles into Intermediate Geo Materials
Long, James H
Wisconsin Dept of Transportation
Comparison of LRFD and LFD Cast in Place Pile Design and Construction Methods
Long, James H
IL Department of Transportation
Improvement of Driven Pile Installation and Design in Illinois-Phase 2
Lopez-Pamies, Oscar
US National Science Foundation
Collaborative Research: Damage in Soft Solids: Elasticity vs Fracture
Lopez-Pamies, Oscar
US National Science Foundation
An Iterated Homogenization Method to Study Cavitation in Soft Solids
Lopez-Pamies, Oscar
US National Science Foundation
CAREER: Novel Homogenization Approaches to Study the Electromechanical Behavior and Stability of Soft Electrostrictive Composites
Mari単as, Benito Jose
US National Science Foundation
Safe Global Water (SGW): Building Partnerships for Sustainable Global Access to Safe Water And Sanitation
Mari単as, Benito Jose
US Environmental Protection Agency
Toxicity of Drinking Water Associated with Alternative Distribution System Rehabilitation Strategies
Mari単as, Benito Jose
Japan Sewage Works Agency
Japan Fellowship 2012-06963 Trilateral Training
Mari単as, Benito Jose
Syndicate des Eaux d'ile de France
Inactivation of Adenovirus Coxsackievirus and Norovirus with Filtered Polychromatic Medium-Pressure Ultraviolet Light
Masud, Arif
BP Corporation North America Inc
Evaluation of the Performance of A CFD Code for Modeling Waves and Wave Impacts on Offshore Structues
Minsker, Barbara S
Deere & Company
Demonstrating the Feasibility of Agronomic Decision Support Using a Field Readiness Virtual Sensor
Mondal, Paramita
IL Department of Transportation
Bridge Decks Mitigation of Cracking & Increased Durability
Nguyen, Thanh Huong
US National Science Foundation
Collaborative Research: Virus Removal in Membrane Bioreactors: Role of Virus Aggregation and Adhesion
Nguyen, Thanh Huong
US National Science Foundation
Collaborative Research Horizontal Gene Transfer in Porous Media Experiments and Modeling
Nguyen, Thanh Huong
US Environmental Protection Agency
Association of Pathogens with Biofilms In Drinking Water Distribution Systems
Nguyen, Thanh Huong
Not Specified
Reclamation of Secondary Effluents with Reverse Osmosis Membranes Fouling Mechanisms and Control
Nguyen, Thanh Huong
US National Science Foundation
Pathogen Control, Sustainable Reuse of Wastewater, Role of Surface Interactions on Natural Removal of Cryptosporidium Parvum Oocysts
Olson, Scott
US Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Investigation and Modeling of Element-Level Soil Behavior under Multi-Dimensional Loading
Olson, Scott
US National Science Foundation
CAREER: Impact of Liquefaction-Induced Water Layers on Forward and Inverse Geoengineering Analyses
Ouyang, Yanfeng
US National Science Foundation
Planning Reliable and Resilient Transportation Networks Against Correlated Infrastructure Disruptions
Ouyang, Yanfeng
Trustees of Purdue University
Decision Support Tool to Locate Shelters in Disasters
Ouyang, Yanfeng
Trustees of Purdue University
Impact of High-Speed Passenger Trains on Freight Train Efficiency in Shared Railway Corridors
Ouyang, Yanfeng
US National Science Foundation
Workshop on Modeling Sustainable and Resilient and Robust Infrastructure Systems
Ouyang, Yanfeng
US National Science Foundation
CAREER: Information Mechanisms and Robust Stabilization of Nonlinear, Stochastic Transportation Networks
Ouyang, Yanfeng
CSX Transportation Inc/CSX Corporation
Track Inspection Vehicle Scheduling for CSX Transportation
Ouyang, Yanfeng
IL Department of Transportation
National State Safety Engineers and Traffic Engineers Peer to Peer Workshop
Ozer, Hasan
Gallagher Asphalt Corporation
Performance Characterization of In-Place Re-Heat Recycled Mixtures
Ozer, Hasan
IL Department of Transportation
Pavement Design Course
Parker, Gary
US National Science Foundation
Climate and Human Dynamics as Amplifiers of Natural Change: A Framework for Vulnerability Assessment and Mitigation Planning
Parker, Gary
University of Texas - Austin
SA Delta Dynamics Collaboratory Proposal
Parker, Gary
US National Science Foundation
A Field Laboratory and Theoretical Study of Mixed Bedrock-Alluvial Meandering Rivers
Parker, Gary
Office of Naval Research
Morphologic Quantification of River Traversability
Parker, Gary
National Center for Earth-Surface Dynamics
National Center for Earth-Surface Dynamics
cee.illinois.edu
Investigator
Funding Agency
Project Title
Paulino, Glaucio
US National Science Foundation
Functionally Graded Concrete for the Civil Infrastructure - A Multifunctional Material System Approach
Paulino, Glaucio
Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP
Topology Optimization Applied to High-Rise Building Design
Popovics, John S
National Academy of Sciences
Hardware Development for a Full Lane Acoustic Scanning Device
Popovics, John S
University Texas Arlington
Full-Scale RC and HPFRC Frame Sub-Asseblages Subjected to Collapse-Consistent Loading Protocols
Roesler, Jeffery R
IL Department of Transportation
Mech Empirical Design I & M for Rigid Pavements
Rood, Mark J
US National Science Foundation
Gas Purification with Recovery and Reuse to Achieve More Sustainable and Competitive Manufacturing
Rood, Mark J
Colorado State Univ
Bondville Environmental and Atmospheric Research Site
Rood, Mark J
US National Science Foundation
International DDEP: Understanding and Enhancing Post-Combustion Multi-Pollutant Control with Carbon-Based Materials
Rood, Mark J
Office of Naval Research
Vapor Recovery by Electrothermal Swing Adsorption
Rood, Mark J
Pregis Corporation
Adsorption Isotherms for Gas Capture and Recovery System
Rood, Mark J
US Dept of Commerce
Bondville Environmental and Atmospheric Research Site
Saat, Mohd
US Department of Transportation
Investigating Technical Challenges and Research Needs Related to Shared Corridors for High Speed Passenger and Railroad Freight Operations
Sivapalan, Murugesu
US National Science Foundation
Biotic Alteration of Soil Hydrologic Properties and Feedback with Vegetation Dynamics in Water Limited Ecosystems
Song, Junho
US National Science Foundation
Structural Optimization for Buildings Under Stochastic Excitations
Song, Junho
US National Science Foundation
Risk-Informed Management and Post-Disaster Operations of Lifeline Networks by Rapid Condition-Based System Reliability Analysis
Song, Junho
US National Science Foundation
n Integrated Platform for Validated Prediction of Collapse of Stsructures
Spencer, B.F.
US National Science Foundation
Asia-Pacific Summer School on Smart Structures Technology China 2011 India 2012 and Korea 2013
Spencer, B.F.
US National Science Foundation
EAGER: Bio-Inspired Smart Sensor Networks for Adaptive Emergency Response
Spencer, B.F.
Trustees of Purdue University
Performance-Based Design and Real-Time Large-Scale Testing to Enable Implementation of Advanced Damping Systems
Spencer, B.F.
Trustees of Purdue University
NEES Operations FY 2010 - FY 2014
Spencer, B.F.
US National Science Foundation
Bio-Informed Framework Enabling Multimetric Infrastructure Monitoring
Spencer, B.F.
Mandaree Enterprise Corporation
Advanced Bridge Capacity and Structural Integrity Assessment
Spencer, B.F.
US National Science Foundation
Smart Structures Technology Summer School
Stark, Timothy D
Federal Railroad Administration
Seismic Testing for Track Substructure (Ballast and Subgrade) Assessment
Stark, Timothy D
IL Department of Transportation
Procedures for Determining the Axial Capacity of Drilled Shafts in Illinois Shale
Strathmann, Timothy J
US National Science Foundation
CAREER: Fouling, Regeneration, and Sustainability of Heterogeneous Catalytic Treatment Processes: An Integrated Research and Education Plan
Strathmann, Timothy J
US Environmental Protection Agency
Fellowship for Tias Paul
Struble, Leslie J
US National Science Foundation
Materials World Network: Effects of Precursor Nanostructure on Geopolymer Structure and Properties
Thompson, Marshall
IL Department of Transportation
Design I & M for Flexible Pavements
Tutumluer, Erol
Trustees of Purdue University
Development of Improved Pavement Rehabilitation Procedures Based on FWD Backcalculation
Tutumluer, Erol
US Department of Transportation
Mitigation of Differential Movement at Railway Transitions for US High Speed Passenger Rail and Joint Passenger Freight Corridors
Tutumluer, Erol
Federal Railroad Administration
Discrete Element Modeling of Railroad Ballast Behavior
Tutumluer, Erol
Minnesota Department of Transportation
Cost Effective Base Type and Thickness for Long Life Concrete Pavements
Tutumluer, Erol
Tensar Earth Technologies
Development of Enhanced Aggregate Image Analyzer for Aggregate Evaluation
Tutumluer, Erol
IL Department of Transportation
Development of Improved Overlay Thickness Design Alternatives for Local Roads
Tutumluer, Erol
IL Department of Transportation
Evaluation of Aggregate Subgrade Materials Used as Pavement Subgrade/Granular Subbase
Valocchi, Albert J
Army Research Office
Conference Support for the XIX International Conference on Computational Methods in Water Resource
Valocchi, Albert J
US Department of Energy
Conference Support for the XIX International Conference on Computational Methods in Water Resources
Valocchi, Albert J
US Department of Energy
Microbiological-Enhanced Mixing Across Scales During In Situ Bioreduction of Metals and Radionuclides at Department of Energy Sites
Valocchi, Albert J
Los Alamos National Lab
Integrated Experimentation and Hybrid Modeling for Prediction and Control Of Multiphase Flow and Reaction in CO2 Injection And Storage
Valocchi, Albert J
US National Science Foundation
Improving Prediction of Subsurface Flow and Transport through Exploratory Data Analysis and Complementary Modeling
Valocchi, Albert J
US Department of Energy
Modeling Multiscale Multiphase Multicomponent Subsurface Reactive Flows
Werth, Charles J
US Environmental Protection Agency
ustainable Catalytic Treatment of Waste Ion Exchange Brines for Reuse During Oxyanion Treatment in Drinking Water
Werth, Charles J
US Environmental Protection Agency
Use of Bone Char for the Removal of Arsenic and Uranium from Groundwater at the Pine Ridge Reservation
Werth, Charles J
King Abdullah Univ of Science and Technology
Collaborative Research on Sustainable Water Development and Engineering
Work, Daniel
Trustees of Purdue University
Joint Parameter and State Estimation Algorithms for Real-Time Traffic Monitoring
Work, Daniel
NAVTEQ
Traffic Flow Research & Forecast
Zilles, Julie
US National Science Foundation
Identifying Design Principles for Engineered Ecosystems: Denitrifying Biofilters for Sustainable Agriculture
CEE at Illinois—Winter 2013 37
President’s Council
Individual Donors The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering thanks its alumni and friends who have made it possible for our students and faculty to pursue their education and research in the best CEE department in the country. We could not do it without your support. Donors to any fund in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering from July 1, 2011, to June 30, 2012, are listed here. We strive to make these lists as accurate as possible. If your name is listed incorrectly or omitted, please accept our apologies. For corrections or further information about making a gift, please contact John E. Kelley, jekelley@illinois.edu, (217) 333-5120.
38
cee.illinois.edu
We thank those who have joined the University of Illinois President’s Council with a commitment of $25,000 or more. Below are members who joined before June 30, 2012, and who have given to the department. Friends: Lalit R. Bahl and Kavita Kinra Rob R. and Dorothy Waymon Beldon Olive M. Chen-Liu Walter L. and Carole A. Crowley Anna Allen Farnsworth Marilyn Smith Brown Hunt George-Anne Oliver Kelly Margaret Khachaturian Ronald F. and Alyne V. Kornell David A. and Rise R. Lange Jon C. and Judith S. Liebman Paul M. and Susan A. Mayfield Mary Barlow Medearis William E. O’Neil Kenneth E. Nelson Paul R. and Christine T. Predick Don K. Schopfer Vern and Jeannie Snoeyink Albert J. Valocchi and Anne H. Silvis Ruth Chao Yen Thomas R. and Carla Broich White 1995 Wilbur C. Milhouse III 1987 David G. and Janet S. Peshkin 1985 Kathryn A. Zimmerman 1984 Larry C. and Rhonda S. Wesselink
1979 John A. Frauenhoffer Stuart A. and Susan Verseman Klein 1978 Robert H. Dodds Jr. and Deana Bland-Dodds Stanley M. Herrin Jon E. and Barbara B. Khachaturian Andrew W. Richardson Damon S. Williams 1977 James J. Brown Perry C. and Linda S. Hendrickson 1976 Robert W. and Andrea C. Cusick Jeffrey A. Liggett 1974 Richard Cramond Jr. Sergio “Satch” Pecori Richard J. and Linda J. Sieracki 1973 Ronald W. and Lois T. Crockett Fred N. and Ellen A. Ranck James L. and Doris I. Willmer 1971 Joseph M. and Patricia A. Kaiser Bengt I. and Kathryn A. Karlsson 1969 Victor C. Corsetti Barry J. and Pauline G. Dempsey Richard J. Erickson Michael M. Kimura 1968 Paul D. Koch Robert G. and Flo Anne O’Brien George K. Varghese
1982 Tracy K. Lundin Donald E. Jr. and Patricia M. Manhard Julian Rueda
1967 Arthur R. Jr. and Judy B. Jensen Larry B. and Sharon Salz
1981 Kevin J. and Carey A. Dulle
1966 Norman Allen and Lee Ann Dobbs
1980 William F. Baker John L. and Karen E. Carrato James K. Clinard Bryan D. Wesselink
1965 Larry M. Sur 1963 William H. Walker
1961 W. Gene and Lynd W. Corley Neil Middleton and S. Ann Hawkins William A. Jr. and Delores Huston Thomas K. Liu Robert W. Mikitka 1960 Phillip L. and Deborah P. Gould Lyle W. and Nancy M. Hughart Norman C. Riordan 1959 Thomas C. H. Lum Joseph H. Pound 1958 Benjamin A. Jr. and Georgeann Hall Jones Joshua L. Jr. and Eleanor W. Merritt 1957 Ronald R. and Margaret M. Watkins 1956 Arthur R. Robinson 1955 Thomas J. Byrne Jerry J. Felmley 1954 David C. Crawford Robert E. Lenzini Maurice A. and JoAnn Wadsworth 1952 John E. Barrett 1951 William K. Becker Louis Bowman Jr. 1950 Burton A. Lewis William E. and Margarite D. Stallman 1949 Gordon B. and Monalea Dalrymple Robert J. and Stella F. Mosborg Wendall Lee Rowe 1948 Melvin and Theda Febesh 1946 Charles J. Berkel 1943 Sidney and Sondra Berman Epstein
Dean’s Club
The department is honored to acknowledge members of the Dean’s Club of 2011-2012. Listed below are those who gave $1000 or more to CEE from July 1, 2011, to June 30, 2012. Friends: Gail L. Balling Christopher P. L. and Elizabeth Lyman Barkan Mary Lynn Boscardin David E. Boyce Sondra O. Callahan Donald Coleman Diane M. Darwin Amr S. Elnashai Soledad Juamiz Esmilla Jean D. Franke Susan I. Frizzi Lin Healy Karen A. Hollenbeck Ann Johnson Cameron Kring Gayle D. Landuyt Wen-Tso Liu Patsy Lum Patricia O’Rourke Griselda Reyes Mark J. Rood Margaret V. Roscetti Steven R. and Pamela D. Saye Samuel L. Sogin Mike Trammell Charlotte Wiseman 2004 George Avery Grimes 1995 Sandra E. Roesler 1994 Ron Juamiz Esmilla Jeffery R. Roesler 1992 John A. Balling 1990 Robert Scott Trotter 1988 Brian G. Ramsay 1987 Rudolph Pio Frizzi Marcos G. Reyes
1984 Brian E. Healy Sung-Wan Hong 1983 Kenneth M. Floody 1982 C. Wayne Swafford Marilyn E. Tears 1980 Marco David Boscardin James Robert Harris 1979 Bruce A. Johnson 1977 Alan J. Hollenbeck Michael T. McCullough William J. Nugent 1975 Thomas D. O’Rourke 1974 David Darwin Vernon E. Dotson Douglas J. Nyman 1973 Glenn E. Frye Lawrence Paul Jaworski 1972 Dean J. Arnold 1971 Michael W. Franke Thomas L. Roscetti 1969 Alan B. Butler 1968 Hershell Gill Jr. 1966 Ronald W. Drucker 1965 Frederick B. Plummer Jr. Richard A. Wiseman 1963 James O. Jirsa J. Ronald Salley
1955 Glenn E. Nordmark
1981 David A. Sabatini
1953 Nancy B. Brooks Estate
1979 David A. Twardock Christina U. K. Drouet
Sponsoring Associates
1978 Steve R. Raupp
The department gratefully acknowledges the Sponsoring Associates of 2011-2012. Listed below are those who gave $500 to $999 to CEE from July 1, 2011, to June 30, 2012. Friends: Joan B. Bauer Lois D. Ellingwood Linda S. Harris Barbara G. Kile Catherine M. Kos Bette Wallerstein Lombard Lorie R. Raupp Elizabeth S. Rodden Frances K. Sabatini Kathryn G. Severin Aruna Singh Kathleen A. Twardock Carol N. Weil Arlene L. Wojcieszak Teresa Rios Wright
1977 Michael G. Lombard John P. Kos Philip E. Diekemper 1974 Michael Ray Lewis 1972 Robert C. Bauer Bruce R. Ellingwood 1971 Charles H. Dowding III John Ramage Anand K. Singh 1970 John F. Harris 1969 William J. Pananos
2006 Robert Alan Rodden
1968 Winston E. Kile Robert C. Bauer
1997 Hector Estrada
1966 Maynard A. Plamondon
1995 James Russell Bailey III Stephen H. Wassmann
1964 Richard L. Ruddell
1990 Howard P. Walther
1962 H. S. Hamada Richard N. Wright III
1986 Sharon L. Wood
1957 Raymond F. Wojcieszak
1985 George E. Leventis
1954 Ashley B. Craig Jr.
1984 Colleen E. Quinn Paul J. Kilgallon
1952 Nicholas A. Weil
1982 Jeffrey L. Arnold Blaine F. Severin Dale R. Wilhelm
Contributors
CEE gratefully acknowledges the Contributors of 2011-2012. Below are those who gave up to $499 to CEE from July 1, 2011, to June 30, 2012. Friends: Jennifer M. Allen Barbara G. Anderson Amelia R. Andresen Claire A. Aoki Janet L. Aten Zarrine Banerji Mary Massey Baumann Sally B. Beck Ruth Hawkins Bein Cathie A. Benoit Cinda J. Berry Colleen A. Broz Marilyn E. Brozio Barbara L. Brumbaugh Lori W. Buchanan Elaine M. Chaille Joanne W. Chou Arlene L. Cowan Lela K. Criswell Qingli Dai Nelly Der Kiureghian Kathryn L. Dierstein Peggy C. Doak John Marshall Draper George J. Efstathiou Helen M. Etherton Carol A. Fischer Lorel Beth Fitting Frances A. Fosnaugh Reverend Margaret A. Foutch Jason L. Frericks Meggie D. Fuehne Bethany B. Garbe Kathleen McMahon Gazda Carol Giffhorn Mary T. Grimm Michelle S. Hackett Linda S. Hanlon Evelyn L. Hann Shirley R. Havel Fengjuan He Moreland Herrin Karen T. Hou Margaret F. Johnson Jimmey L. and Mona A. Kaiser Emi K. Kawasaki Margaret M. Kell Ryan G. Kernes Samuel L. Kershaw
Valeri N. Kershaw Frances M. Khayyat Young H. Kim Barbara B. Kincaid Sandra K. and David L. King Cynthia A. Knox Sharon L. Kuhn Arlene S. Lamb Kristine L. Lane Marsha Lanyon Ryan N. Lawson Carol S. Leslie Liang Liu Janet M. Madden Stacy Mahoney Janice K. Marine Alice S. Martin Jayaraj Jeanne S. Mathews Susan Bahrenburg Matthews Daniel S. May Genevieve Anne Missel Deborah M. Moeller Greg B. Munden Janet L. Musselman Carri R. Nickel Kathy Culver Nickell Patricia C. Nowak Julia K. Olsta Barbara Parikh Jennifer L. Patton Alicia Perkovich Joan R. Pound Christopher Thomas Rapp Wilma J. Reed Donald H. and Betty L. Rice Jennifer G. Roman Elizabeth H. Rubel Lisa A. Ruscko Tracey Salvatore Julia B. Sanders Adrienne D. Schoenwolf Joan L. Sheppard Brian J. Sinclair Elizabeth W. Snyder Amanda A. Sosnowski Lee A. Spacht Paula L. Staron Anjali M. Sues Mary K. Sullivan Michael S. Szatkowski Carolyn J. Tayabji Brandee L. Toliver Beda B. Tupay Elizabeth A. Urish Brandon J. Van Dyk Mark A. Wandrey Becky Ann Webb Ryan Wenzel
CEE at Illinois—Winter 2013 39
Sally S. Wermcrantz Arnold R. Wieczorek Linda K. Wight Virginia M. Williams Joanna Schmid Williamson Lois Wisthuff Leo G. Woerner Betsy P. and Kam Wu Wong Lynn D. Worley Pamela R. Wuellner Ellen R. Wylie Yuanjie Xiao Barbara V. Zdanowicz Dorothy Zihal 2012 Huseyin Boler Carrie D. Desmond Kelly C. Dunne Vyoma K. Patel Emily J. Van Dam Nanyan Zhou
2006 Alex K. Apeagyei Colin C. Coad Kurt A. Keifer James F. Meister 2005 David M. Boddy Edward W. East David A. Tayabji Hongkyu Yoon Andrew J. Keaschall 2004 Peter A. Byler Evaristo Quiroz Eytan M. Solomon 2003 Jason C. Fuehne James A. Webb Zhanping You
2011 Jaya Brata Bose Brennan M. Caughron Justin S. Grasse Hasan Ozer Sihang Wei Michael A. Wnek
2002 Alexander S. Garbe Kevin P. Huberty Jensen P. John Eric O. Johnson Derek T. Patton Beida Xie
2010 Thomas M. Carrato Samantha G. Chadwick Courtney Elizabeth Johnson
2001 David L. Byrd Katherine D. Dombrowski Kyle A. Kershaw Thomas E. Riordan Mark S. Salvatore Edward H. Stankiewicz
2009 Patrick C. Johnston Elizabeth Caitlin Richter Carol V. Truschke 2008 Jordan J. Card James L. Christensen Michael J. Fornek Michael D. Gustavson Joshua M. Hendrix John M. Hynes Jr. 2007 Luis A. Garcia Jun Ji Katie L. Kukielka Jayhyun Kwon Stefano M. Truschke Janice M. Wenzel
2000 Christian M. Carrico William H. Dunlop Wayne M. Helge Karen H. Martin Nathan David Rau Joshua E. Saak 1999 Thomas J. Mitoraj Aaron T. Toliver 1998 John R. Hayes Jr. Jeffrey K. Mahoney Andrew J. Martin Matthew J. Niermann Matthew John Pregmon Paul R. Ruscko Chloe S. Wieczorek Michael M. Wieczorek
40 cee.illinois.edu Visit CEE on the web at http://cee.illinois.edu 40
1997 Brian S. Chaille Brian S. Heil John A. Kerrigan Todd C. Missel Jeffrey B. Naumann Keri A. Nebes Shawn M. Toohey Tracy L. Willer
1990 Matt R. Fauss Allen B. Gelderloos Deron G. Huck Helen T. May
1996 Jeffrey J. Dragovich Tetsuo Wada Eric B. Williamson
1988 Kevin J. Ahern Stacey E. McNamara Scott D. Schiff Lisa J. Taccola
1995 Neal L. Banerjee Kevin R. Collins Richard T. Nickel Anthony Sak Kellie S. Sak Christopher T. Sosnowski Theodore F. Szyszka Jr. 1994 Gregory B. and Laura B. Heckel Jason E. Hedien Bryan J. McDermott Anupama Ramesh Burt A. Wagner III 1993 Gregory T. Buchanan Daniel F. Burke James W. Carter III David T. Lewandowski Brian A. Perkovich Peter J. Prommer Mark F. Rhodes Kai Tak and Alisa Liu Monty J. Wade 1992 Curt M. Evoy Sava S. Nedic William M. Rexroad II Robert K. Rockwood Daniel H. Yi 1991 Gary J. Huels Robert L. Keiser David M. Riordan Sophie B. Sacca
1989 John W. Hackett Charles D. Zapinski
1987 Steven C. Jirschele Kevin W. Kleemeyer Christine M. Klepp James M. LaFave Timothy G. LaGrow Thomas F. Plinke 1986 Michael J. Cronin John S. Fraser Barry E. Klepp Thomas D. Knox Kristina A. Lang Andrew J. Querio John E. Sato David T. Soong Edmund H. Tupay Jr. 1985 Brian T. Aoki Brian M. Bottomley Charles R. Conlon David W. DeFoliart Theodore B. Foster David L. Greifzu Melissa A. Kennedy Brian E. Peck Ronald J. Roman Amy M. Schutzbach Peter J. Stork 1984 Marc P. Beisler Delph A. Gustitus Irvin P. Kirkwood David W. Snyder Mark S. Wylie 1983 Robert E. Bassler III Richard M. Bennett
David Daniel Davis Charles E. Gullakson John M. Heinz James A. Fischer David E. McCleary Brian E. Peck Daniel C. Powers Francis J. Powers Brian D. Smith Robert H. Sues Dawn M. Szatkowski Carl Weber Brian R. Welker 1982 Mark Steven Engelen Scott G. Frandsen Jane Durkin Fruin Brent F. Hoots Donald J. Nelson Joseph C. Pickett Thomas J. Waldron III J. Dennis Wermcrantz Kevin M. Wilson John A. Worley 1981 Mark D. Bowman James M. Casey Michael S. Cheney Richard G. Stratton Jr. 1980 Keith W. Benting Paul H. Boening Lynne C. Chicoine Mark R. Ericksen Michael D. Grimm James F. Hall Joseph D. Havel George E. Howe Carl M. Nagata Daniel J. Rubel William L. Schmanski Timothy J. Sheehan Ya-Hu Shen Steven J. Sieracki Julie M. Spacht Robert W. Steen James B. Sullivan Michael P. Sullivan Jr. Timothy P. Tappendorf Francis P. Wiegand Jr. George Ziska Jr. 1979 Thomas K. Connery Robert B. Doxsee Alan E. Hildebrand
Timothy L. Loch Mary L. Miller James T. Olsta John D. Osgood Rosemary S. Roberts Linda G. Schub John C. Singley Paul M. Street John R. Wolosick 1978 Dennis J. Benoit Darrell J. Berry James K. Chan Lawrence K. Cunningham Lou Dixon Gary W. Ehlert Neil A. Parikh David A. Schoenwolf James E. Surdyk Charles A. Zalesiak 1977 Jose R. Danon David L. Dunn Byung R. Kim Michael J. Koob Edward B. LaBelle Joel C. Maurer Daniel K. Moss Charles E. Peabody Terrence L. Schaddel Dietmar Scheel Daniel G. Streyle 1976 James T. Braselton Armen Der Kiureghian Dennis W. Dreher Lawrence A. Kulman Jr. Dennis D. Lane Richard W. Liesse Douglas C. Noel Joel Smason Edward J. Tunelius William W. Wuellner Jr. 1975 Ghulam M. Bajwa Gary S. Brierley Gautam Ghosh Robert R. Goodrich Jr. Daniel A. Guill 1974 Robert J. Andres G. Tim Bachman Luke Cheng
Andrew D. Cohn Kent R. Gonser Edward C. Gray Richard Alan Guinn Patrick W. Healy Robert W. Horvath Kevin J. Kell David V. May Gary A. Rogers Raymond S. Rollings Jr. Martin E. Schneider Allen J. Staron Steven S. Wegman Patrick F. Wilbur 1973 Ronald O. Armbrust Thomas A. Broz Martin G. Buehler Philip A. Gazda Robert W. Hahn Daniel W. Halpin Jeffry E. Lamb John W. Laws Clinton C. Mudgett Toan T. Nguyen Brian J. Piper Larry J. Rhutasel George E. Rieger Richard S. Weiss James K. Wight Theodore R. Williams 1972 John P. Fyie James A. Hanlon Daryl D. Moeller Joseph A. Reichle Richard J. Zdanowicz 1971 Michael G. Berry Patrick P. Brennan Adisak Intaratip Peter A. Lenzini Gregory C. Martin Stephen W. Moulton Dennis D. Niehoff William A. Rettberg Francisco Silva-Tulla Gary A. Wilken Lyle D. Yockey 1970 William D. Berg Larry A. Cooper Marvin E. Criswell
Robert L. Fark Roger R. Fitting Douglas A. Foutch Gary R. Marine William E. McCleish Robert J. Schrier Earl J. Schroeder James E. Schwing Jerome F. Thibeaux Robert F. Wood 1969 Jeffrey E. Anderson Harold T. Brown Yuan Chun Eugene Chang Tony Girolami Jerome E. Heinz David J. McConnell Terry W. Micheau Eric C. Pahlke Michael W. Shelton 1968 Clyde L. Anderson Robert L. Carter Bruce M. Cowan John P. Elberti Thomas F. Hintz H. Peter Kaleta Donald F. Meinheit Robert W. Nowak Raman K. Raman Roger W. Wright
John L. Saner E. Douglas Schwantes Jr. Herbert J. Seagrim Clarence R. Warning Richard B. Watson Mehdi S. Zarghamee
1959 William M. Cazier Robert L. Dineen Donald McDonald James R. McKnight Walter A. Von Riesemann
1964 Paul D. Andresen Stewart W. Johnson Darrell G. Lohmeier Theodore W. Nelson Jr. Robert L. Nickerson Kenneth G. Nolte Russell Ramon Rudolph Charles E. Sandberg Donald R. Sherman Marshall Ray Thompson
1958 Richard J. Beck Philip C. Brumbaugh Richard A. Davino Robert C. Flory Robert L. Gende Robert H. Meyer Frank A. Perry Jr. Ralph H. Yunker
1963 Robert L. Almond George M. Hansen William A. Kreutzjans David M. Lee Robert N. Leslie John D. Mozer Gerald L. Peters Allen N. Reeves Emile A. Samara
1967 Lonnie E. Haefner Edward L. Murphree Jr. Harry J. Woods Jr.
1962 J. Dewayne Allen Ned H. Burns Bing C. Chin John T. Gannon Stephen J. Madden III Joseph A. Morrone Wallace S. Prescott
1966 Barry R. Balmat Danny N. Burgess Allan W. Crowther Jerry R. Divine Emmanuel Drakos Paul David Ellis Dennis R. Lagerquist Edward R. Pershe
1961 Harry Moore Horn Wayne L. Johnson Richard F. Lanyon John A. Kuske Jack C. Marcellis Dick A. Peterson James A. Tambling Raymond E. Untrauer
1965 John R. Abbott Shankha K. Banerji Samuel S. Doak Gregory R. Erhard Salah Y. Khayyat James R. Levey Donald D. Oglesby
1960 Harold J. Abramowski James H. Aikman Lester D. Bacon Marlin K. Betts Guy J. Marella Wallace W. Sanders
1957 Pedro Jimenez- Quinones Alexander E. Scalzitti William P. Taylor Robert K. Wen 1956 Robert W. Bein John H. Cousins Robert E. Gates Robert G. Grulke Everett E. McEwen Forest D. Musselman Jr. Miroslaw Noyszewski 1955 Howard Y. Fukuda William J. Mebes Algis Pabarcius Ronald A. Wisthuff 1954 Edward Robert Baumann Leo R. DiVita C. Terry Dooley Robert A. Fosnaugh Paul A. Kuhn Daniel W. Urish Roger H. Wood Michael Zihal 1953 Richard E. Aten Fredrick R. Beckmann Armas Laupa Richard H. F. Pao Charles L. Sheppard Donald E. Thompson Anestis S. Veletsos
1952 Arthur M. Kaindl David J. Kincaid Jr. 1951 Tung Au Neil M. Denbo Samuel J. Errera Gerald E. Hann Joseph J. Jeno Dean C. Merchant Wayne V. Miller John W. Ratzki 1950 Robert G. Currie Philip G. Dierstein Fred O. Gilbertsen John R. Ross 1949 Donald W. Kaminski Walter L. Kevern Robert D. Mahan Robert J. Mathews 1948 Walter W. Giffhorn Jr. Martin J. Siebrasse 1947 Bernard J. Krotchen Wilho E. Williams 1946 Anthony N. Konstant 1943 Raymond J. Ackerman Harold Clinton William A. Hickman
We are grateful for your support. To make a gift to the department, visit the giving page on our website: cee. illinois.edu/ alumni/gift.
CEE at Illinois—Winter 2013 41
Thanks, alumni and friends! More than 70 department scholarships are given out to CEE undergraduates each year, thanks to the generosity of our alumni and friends. The total scholarships awarded each year by the department add up to approximately $100,000, with amounts ranging from $2,000 to $6,000 each. To make a gift in support of scholarships, please visit cee.illinois.edu/alumni/gift.
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