CMU.EDU/CEE
A HOME FOR INNOVATION & COLLABORATION Introducing the New Environmental Engineering Labs
Fall 2020
CEE NEWS
Fall 2020
Editor & Designer Mireille Mobley
Contributors
Daniel Carroll
Rachel Mohr Handel Mireille Mobley
Georgia Schumacher For more news and
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Dear Alumni and Friends, This issue focuses on the ways in which CEE has persevered during the pandemic—completing the renovation and starting up operations in our environmental engineering labs, and preparing for and welcoming students back to campus for an unusual Fall semester. In January 2020 we moved into our newly renovated environmental engineering labs. The new labs are serving our students and faculty well. The environmental engineering lab complex is a 6000 sf next-generation facility for experimental studies relating to water, soil, energy, climate, and agriculture. See page 4 for more information and perspectives from students. CEE faculty members have been part of Carnegie Mellon research in response to the pandemic. The article on page 16 describes various interdisciplinary research investigations involving our CEE faculty members—from how a virus enters a cell to the socioeconomic impacts of coronavirus. A team of CEE faculty members and collaborators is examining the complex intersection of autonomous systems and information/data privacy. Seven CEE researchers, including Professors Mario Bergés and Greg Lowry, explain the three layers of autonomous systems and how the information collected could impact our way of life. See page 12 for their insights. Assistant Professor Destenie Nock is working to bring more consideration of equity into electricity infrastructure planning in developing regions. She and her students are formulating a model that recognizes that demand for electricity often rises as supply grows and new opportunities emerge. See the description of her research on page 10. In faculty news, Provost and Chief Academic Officer James H. Garrett, Jr. was named a member of the National Academy of Construction. Professor Chris Hendrickson was appointed to The National Academies Committee for Accelerating Decarbonization in the United States. Assistant Professor Jerry Wang was named the 2020 Frederick A. Howes Scholar in Computational Science by the U.S. Department of Energy—and selected as a 2020-2021 Provost’s Inclusive Teaching Fellow at the Carnegie Mellon Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation. I am delighted to announce that David Rounce recently joined CEE as an assistant professor. Professor Rounce is motivated by the opportunity to teach CEE students and engage them in his research on glacial hydrology and climate change. See page 8 for more information. Finally, in response to suggestions from CEE alumni I am happy to announce the new CEE Student Activities Fund which provides a vehicle for alumni to support directly student projects and activities. The fund allows donors to direct their donation to support specific student activities in the department. The faculty, students and staff of CEE thank all of our loyal and generous alumni who support the Department in so many and much appreciated ways. We send our best wishes to all of you.
Dave Dzombak
Hamerschlag University Professor and Department Head
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Inside this Issue 10
Electricity for All
12
Shooting for the Moon
16
CEE and Coronavirus Research
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Alum Helps Organizations Construct the Workplace of Tomorrow
CEE/EPP’s Destenie Nock led a study outlining a more equitable model of electricity planning in developing regions like Liberia.
From self-driving cars to smart buildings, new questions are arising as intelligent and autonomous systems become more and more a part of our daily lives.
The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked an unprecedented wave of research among investigators across varied disciplines. At CEE, faculty are looking into detection and treatment methods as well as socioeconomic impacts.
As Carnegie Mellon alum Harvey Beckham, P.E. (CE and EPP ’90), left his office in March of 2020, everyone around him was also departing. His colleagues were preparing to work from home in response to COVID-19, but Beckham was preparing for something more.
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CEE Giving: New Fund Lets Alumni Directly Support CEE Student Activities Alumni, faculty, staff, and anyone else interested in supporting CEE will be able to give to the Student Activities Fund with a clear understanding of how their gift will be used in service of the department’s students and events.
A HOME FOR INNOVATION & COLLABORATION
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The second level of Porter Hall, last renovated in 1994, is now a newly-remodelled 6000 square-foot facility. It features a spacious layout that highlights the building’s original brick walls and natural light, flowing through arched windows.
2021 Program Rankings *
Our Faculty & Research
Civil Environmental 11th - UG 8th - UG 10th - Grad 8th - Grad
13 Full Professors 4 Associate Professors 4 Assistant Professors
* Source: U.S. News and World Report
Enrollment AY 2019-2020 Bachelors Masters Doctoral
92 132 79
CEE Students 50% of Are Women 60% Undergraduate Women 46% Graduate Women
3
Faculty with Active NSF Career Awards
$5.49M Annual Externally F unded Sponsored Research in FY20 FALL 2020 3
>> PhD student Yilin Zhang
A HOME FOR INNOVATION & COLLABORATION Introducing the New Environmental Engineering Labs 4 CEE NEWS
Amidst a changing climate and a growing population, society must rise to meet ever-evolving environmental sustainability challenges. CEE faculty and students have long been working to study and address these issues, but, now, a renovated environmental engineering lab space is enabling research to progress more efficiently and collaboratively than ever before. “Our new facility is a next-generation facility for environmental studies of water, soil, energy, climate, and agriculture. This open, bright, and flexible space is optimal for a rapid response to the research needs for current and emerging environmental challenges,” says Professor Kelvin Gregory, one of the CEE Professors who will conduct research inside the new labs. The labs are also essential to supporting the research and students of CEE Professors David Dzombak, Greg Lowry, David Rounce, Jeanne VanBriesen, and other faculty members. Last renovated in 1994, the new 6000-square-foot facility on the second level of Porter Hall began welcoming students at the start of 2020, featuring a spacious layout that highlights the building’s original
we have a facility that is designed to the latest laboratory standards and innovations and that positions us to compete with the strongest programs in the United States and across the world in the environmental engineering science domain.” In addition to investments from the CEE Department, the lab redesign was made possible through generous support from the University, the College of Engineering, the Hillman Foundation in Pittsburgh, and multiple CEE alumni. Throughout the lab, several alumni have been recognized for their gifts, with their names attached to various benches and spaces in gratitude for their help with achieving the department’s vision.
>> PhD student Garrett Bland in lab (photo from 2019) brick walls and natural light flowing through the arched windows. Inside, where there were once three walled-off rooms, a large central area now runs the length of the lab. Here, faculty and students have 12 state-ofthe-art workstations with fume hoods and drop-down power from the ceiling, designed to accommodate the department’s changing needs for years to come. “This openness helps in the cultivation of new lines of investigation, because everyone—faculty, post-docs, graduate students, and undergraduate students— are interacting directly in a way that is conducive to an exchange of ideas,” says Gregory. Directly attached to the main area are a separate biological lab, microscope room, analytical instrumentation room, mercury analysis room, and elemental analysis room. “After 25 years of heavy use and a lot of good work in the labs, these updates were imperative to being able to continue to attract top faculty, staff, and students and also to do state-of-the-art work,” states Department Head Dave Dzombak. “Now
With space previously used for storage reclaimed in the renovation, the labs gained additional square footage and also now connect to ANSYS Hall, giving researchers the benefit of elevator access. “The new lab is an amazing upgrade. There’s room for all the cool gadgets we have recently purchased, and there’s room to grow, so, as new devices come along that the department wants, we have the space,” says CEE Professor Greg Lowry. “When prospective students walk in and see this lab, they say, ‘Wow. I want to work there!” Among the newer, more cutting-edge instruments in the lab is a single-particle inductively-coupled-plasma Time-OfFlight Mass Spectrometer (ICP-TOFMS), which allows researchers to determine the multi-elemental composition and mass of individual nanoparticles recovered from soil, plants, water, and other sources. “It gives you very particle-specific chemistry information as opposed to having to rely on an average of millions of particles,” Lowry explains. “The instrument we own was the first of its kind in North America, and, for the first year we had it, it was the only one in the United States.” Currently, PhD student Garret Bland is using the ICP-TOFMS to study metal-based engineered nanomaterials (ENM) found in soil. His research is funded by the US Army Research Office, which wants to understand the environmental impact of the ENMs they use for munitions, obscurants, self-healing
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individual soil sample particle that— just like a human fingerprint—we can trace back to an engineered or natural nanomaterial,” says Bland. “My objective is to develop a framework that can identify ENMs, approximate ENM concentrations in soil, and determine the ENM source and age based on surrounding conditions. It’s essentially environmental forensics.” Having worked in the old lab and the new, Bland appreciates not only the increased interaction with fellow researchers, but also that the improved organization and ease of access to materials has helped him be more efficient. “It makes work go much smoother, so we’re able to do more experiments and more in-depth experiments in the new lab,” he reflects.
materials, and other applications. Outside of the military, ENMs are also prevalent in many commercial and industrial products, and numerous questions linger about the longterm fate and effects of engineered nanoparticles. Although nanoparticles are known to accumulate in the environment, one challenge to assessing and monitoring ENM risk has been measuring their concentrations in soil. Many of the most utilized nanomaterials—like titanium, iron, aluminum, and silica—are naturally abundant, and distinguishing between natural and engineered nanoparticles has historically been tricky. Bland’s research aims to provide a solution. “With the ICP-TOFMS, I can produce a unique chemical fingerprint of an
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Among Bland’s peers in the lab is fellow PhD student Yilin Zhang, whose research—funded by the National Science Foundation—is rethinking how we deliver agrochemicals to crops. Today, chemical usage in agriculture is highly inefficient, causing significant nitrogen and phosphorus runoff and pollution.
At the same time, the severity and length of heat waves is increasing, which can limit crop productivity, make plants more vulnerable to pathogens, and amplify the need for agrochemicals. Zhang hopes to address both problems by using nanotechnology to deliver nutrients and antimicrobial agents in a way that is more targeted and responsive to stressors like heat and excess light. Recently, Zhang successfully synthesized polymers that can deliver agrochemicals directly into plants, with the chemicals remaining dormant until they are activated by high temperatures to help the plant survive the heat. “Our nanocarrier can release the agents at the right place—which is inside the plants—and also the right time—which is at higher temperatures when the plants are more vulnerable,” explains Zhang. While plants normally use less than 5% of applied agrochemicals, this delivery method achieves 40% efficiency and Zhang hopes that
number will continue to increase. For Zhang, the new lab has provided a more convenient and collaborative working experience. “In the old lab, we mostly worked in separate areas,” he shares. “Now, it’s much easier to talk with each other and share opinions. There’s more co-experimenting happening.” Of course, as is standard for Carnegie Mellon, collaboration is key to many of the projects occurring in the new labs. Zhang, for example, is co-advised by Professor Lowry and Chemical Engineering Professor Robert Tilton. Lowry and Dzombak are also working on a project with colleagues in Mechanical Engineering to develop robots that could do autonomous soil sampling and site characterization, helping companies and government agencies to identify contamination in large areas that are difficult to sample manually. “The robot would drive around these areas, collecting and analyzing samples in the field, logging the data, and deciding where to go next based on what it knows and the last sample it took,” explains Lowry. “Not many people are doing it yet, but the AI and robotics advances made for things like the Mars Rovers can be used on Earth too.” Other innovative research currently occurring in the lab includes
developing new low-energy methods to treat highly concentrated brines from oil and gas production, with the goal of maximizing water recovery and reuse via a liquid-liquid extraction approach. Beyond these research projects led by faculty and graduate students, CEE undergrads will use the lab for environmental engineering courses, independent research, honors projects, summer research projects, extracurricular activities, and more. Additionally, some of the department’s sensing work has found a home inside the new facility. “This is a shared space among the faculty and students and that includes the entire department along with our colleagues across Carnegie Mellon,” says Dzombak. Looking to the future, the new labs provide a platform for game-changing collaborations, developments, and research discoveries. “This facility will have an immense impact on graduate and undergraduate research in Civil and Environmental Engineering,” states Gregory. “Of course, collaborative interdisciplinary research is what we are best known for at Carnegie Mellon, so this facility will benefit not just the people in our department, but also all of those people that we partner with in the College and across the University.”
“In the old lab, we mostly worked in separate areas. Now, it’s much easier to talk with each other and share opinions. There’s more co-experimenting happening.” >> Yilin zhang
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ROUNCE JOINS CEE FACULTY
David Rounce at Mount Everest David Rounce recently joined CEE as an assistant professor. For the past three years, he’s worked on an open-source global glacier evolution model to improve projections of glacier mass change and runoff. The opportunity to continue his research and help to develop the next generation of engineers motivates Rounce in his new chapter at CEE. “The department excels at seamlessly weaving together world-class science with societal applications,” he states. Prior to his move to CMU, Rounce taught a Physics I recitation course, and found that he loved interacting with students in the classroom. “This ultimately led me to pursue a career in academia that included teaching.” He’s also served as a mentor to undergrad and master’s level students—and has taken them into the field to add hands-on learning to their projects and research. His PhD dissertation, which influenced his open-source global glacier evolution model, focused on debris-covered glaciers and glacier outburst floods in the Nepal Himalaya near Mount Everest. Debris-covered
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glaciers are a specific type of glacier that have a layer of sediment, gravel, and rock on their surface. A thin layer will cause a glacier to absorb more solar radiation thereby enhancing melt, while a thick layer may insulate the glacier and reduce melt. Rounce believes that the model will better inform estimates of sealevel change and water resources. “My specialty is in quantifying how glaciers and glacier hazards are responding to climate change through the use of computational models, remote sensing, and fieldwork,” he says. He holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin—where he also earned an MSE in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do within the field of civil engineering until the start of my junior year when I was on a service trip in Puebla, Mexico. I was talking with local students who were designing a composting latrine for their senior design project and was inspired by how they were able to use their engineering skills to meaningfully impact their community,” he states. As an instructor, Rounce continues to integrate research and service projects into his courses, giving
students the opportunity to focus on problems and become inspired by their education. Rounce’s teaching style includes lectures and collaborative learning to address real-world problems. He believes that this type of learning experience helps students to finetune their interests and passions. “In the past, I’ve led six field expeditions in Nepal to collect data and share our results with local community members. As these glaciers melt and retreat, they are prone to develop glacial lakes, which can become a flood hazard for downstream communities,” he adds. He will continue to share his passion for providing practical engineering solutions with students—through his new position at CEE. “I’ve been incredibly impressed by the department’s commitment to this interdisciplinary research regardless of whether it’s within the department, across the university, or with local and international organizations and stakeholders.” He mentions that CEE’s interdisciplinary framework will help him to meet research goals and ensure that broader impacts are realized. Rounce’s wife is a Pittsburgh native who has introduced him to the area’s biking trails, breweries, and fishing on the Allegheny River north of the city. Rounce is also a basketball and pickleball aficionado as well as an avid homebrewer.
CLASS OF 2020 UNDERGRADUATE AWARDS ASCE Outstanding Civil Engineering Student SHARIKA HEGDE H.A. Thomas, Sr. Distinguished Service EMMA FARRELL H.A. Thomas, Sr. Scholarship SALLY CHEN CHARYL TAN James P. Romualdi Civil and Environmental Engineering PAUL ANDERSON MEREDITH WONG
GRADUATE AWARDS Paul P. Christiano Outstanding Service SARAH HORDERN EMMA CLEMENT Outstanding Teaching Assistant JONATHON FAGERT TANIA LOPEZ Mao Yisheng Outstanding Dissertation WEI MA
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Electricity for all CEE/EPP’s Destenie Nock led a study outlining a more equitable model of electricity planning in developing regions like Liberia.
Organizations like the World Bank imply that equality is an important aspect of their goals for expanding electricity access in developing countries. Yet few studies have actually addressed how to ensure equality in developing areas like subSaharan Africa, and many have even used methods that further inequality. Assistant Professor Destenie Nock has led the first study to “explicitly integrate a stakeholder’s preference towards equality into an electricity planning problem.” Most research to date has taken a least-cost perspective when considering economic criteria, meaning they estimate future electricity demand and attempt to minimize the cost necessary to meet it. Since it is difficult to project the future electricity demands of those who currently have little or none, this estimation disproportionately favors urban areas—which creates the appearance of higher demand, which further perpetuates a cycle of unequal investment. Nock chose instead to use an opportunity-focused model that recognizes that people’s demand for electricity often rises as supply grows and new opportunities emerge. This model also accounts for load shedding, often in the form of 10 CEE NEWS
planned blackouts that frequently occur in developing countries. “I am interested in incorporating more voices and objectives into electricity planning,” said Nock, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering. “Traditional models are focused on developing low cost systems, which is very important, but there are many more objectives—like equity, climate mitigation, and justice— that should be incorporated into energy systems planning.” Nock and her co-authors noted that the most effective technology for supplying a region differs, depending on its current energy infrastructure. Though connection to a centralized electrical grid is often preferred, research shows that decentralized systems are more economically viable in regions without an existing power system infrastructure. Nock’s team created a methodology for finding the optimal expansion of a power system that maximizes social benefit within a constrained budget. They chose the West African country of Liberia as an example study. Years of civil war have caused extensive damage to
the country’s energy infrastructure, and the only major power generation facilities remaining after the conflict’s end are centered around the urban capital of Monrovia. The researchers calculations emphasized providing the greatest number of individuals access to electricity under different budget constraints, rather than simply meeting an assumed demand at the least cost. While the latter might lead to higher overall consumption, they found that countries that place a higher emphasis on equality can see a 72-87 percent increase in energy accessibility, depending on their budgets. Greater investment in transmission infrastructure leads to higher electrification rates overall. The researchers also found that while decentralized systems may be more economically viable in unsupplied regions, they can actually discourage equality, especially at low budgets due to scalability issues. They showed that investing in low-cost decentralized systems like solar discourages investment in transmission infrastructure, decreasing electricity access overall. Through their methodology, Nock and her team demonstrate that investment in an interconnected
power system is key for equitable electrification planning in developing countries. Their opportunity-focused approach eliminates the urban bias of prior least-cost approaches and is widely applicable in countries with little to no electricity access like Malawi, Sierra Leone, Burundi, and Burkina Faso, or in disaster-affected nations like Puerto Rico. Nock’s broader research interests revolve around systems modeling, the food-energy nexus, and energy justice. She plans to continue adding new measures to improve the model and include a larger scope of stakeholder preferences. “I am hoping to continue this research to incorporate other preferences and electricity planning goals, including emissions, and climate mitigation planning,” said Nock. “There are many different preferences stakeholders have regarding electricity, equity, and sustainability goals, which I feel are not currently incorporated in energy optimization models.”
Power expansion maps under various equality preferences. A high Gini index indicates greater inequality.
Nock, seated second from left, with research team and stakeholders at the University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana. FALL 2020 11
SHOOTING FOR THE MOON MAKING SMART CITIES ETHICAL AND SUSTAINABLE From self-driving cars to smart buildings, new questions are arising as intelligent and autonomous systems become more and more a part of our daily lives. Who owns and benefits from all the data collected? Who do these solutions help and who might they leave out? How will they impact an environment already pushed to the brink by our current way of life?
“We used to build machines that did exactly what we told them,” says CEE Professor Mario Bergés. “Now we’re teaching machines to make decisions on our behalf and implement those decisions on the fly. It’s more vital than ever that our designs consider these ethical dimensions.” Bergés is the principal investigator on the Autonomous Technologies for Livability and Sustainability initiative, which won funding from the CMU College of Engineering’s Moonshot 2020 competition. United by a bold vision, the initiative brings together people from across Engineering as well as Architecture, Computer Science, Philosophy, and Heinz College. The group will also partner with industry and local government as they develop and test theories, methodologies, and technologies to solve wide-ranging ethical and sustainability concerns around autonomous systems. CEE Professor Greg Lowry is one of the seven CEE researchers involved. “A lot of people are working on smart cities. Very few people are thinking about how to implement those systems in a sustainable way that maintains people’s privacy and that is equitable across the board,” he says. “If you don’t prioritize and design those features into the system from the start, you’re going to discover that what you created encourages or enhances inequities.”
A Layered Approach: Sensing, Planning, and Acting
Mario Bergés (top) Greg Lowry (bottom) 12 CEE NEWS
Autonomous systems generally have three layers, and CMU researchers will start their project by addressing concerns in each one individually. The first layer is sensing, which involves collecting information about the outside environment. Next is planning, when the system learns from and analyzes data
to make decisions. Finally, actuation, or control, occurs when a plan is put in action and the system exerts influence over its environment. “Things can go wrong in each of these three layers,” explains Bergés. “For example, if we’re tracking people or goods in a city, how do we do sensing without invading people’s privacy? What technologies will allow you to track goods without revealing who is carrying the goods or where exactly they’re going?” Take the sensing goal of counting pedestrians. Cameras record much more information than needed for counting people. While cameras could process information locally and share only the relevant details, the original camera feed could still be hacked and people’s privacy violated. To address these concerns, the CMU group plans to design sensors that optically suppress features relating to identity while preserving other relevant aspects of the image. For the planning layer, the team will build city transportation models with increased dimensions that include things like accessibility constraints, which historically have not always been incorporated. They’ll also explore using crowd-sourced city models to increase the efficiency of transportation systems. Another goal is to design decentralized infrastructure computing so that no single authority
“Carnegie Mellon is the ideal place for such a center. We have expertise in AI, autonomous systems, transportation, buildings, human-computer interaction, engineering and public policy, ethics, machine learning, robotics.” >> Greg Lowry has control over—or information about—an entire city’s buildings. “If each house can take actions that bring the overall city’s power use down, without having to know everyone’s power consumption and what they’re doing, that’d be great,” says Bergés. “But how do we do that? Those are the types of questions we’re going to be solving.”
Planning For the Road Ahead Once solutions are validated for the sensing, planning, and control layers, the group will combine and test the solutions together in more complete applications. With the Moonshot funding, they’ll focus first on transportation systems and smart buildings. They’re also working to start a research center that could allow them to expand their partnerships and extend their work, including exploring areas like intelligent food and water
systems. “Carnegie Mellon is the ideal place for such a center,” says Lowry. “We have expertise in AI, autonomous systems, transportation, buildings, humancomputer interaction, engineering and public policy, ethics, machine learning, robotics. These are elements that CMU is exceptional at, and our faculty has been working in this interdisciplinary manner for decades.” With new technologies on the horizon, Lowry, Bergés, and the entire team are committed to making sure the changes ahead are for the best. “Making buildings more efficient, making your vehicles drive autonomously, and so on—that’s already going to happen,” Bergés asserts. “What we want is for it to happen without negative consequences for our cities and citizens.”
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effective infrastructure management.
Provost Garrett Elected to National Academy of Construction Provost and Chief Academic Officer, James H. Garrett, Jr., the Thomas Lord Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and co-director of the Pennsylvania Smart Infrastructure Institute, has been selected for membership into the National Academy of Construction (NAC). A member of the CMU faculty since 1990, Garrett became Dean of the College of Engineering in 2013. Immediately prior to that, he spent six years as head of CEE. His research career has focused on sensors and data analytics as tools to make our cities more adaptive and efficient. Garrett’s approach to research aims to give built infrastructure the ability to detect and report problems directly to the humans charged with maintaining those structures, allowing for more proactive and cost-
Garrett is recognized as an international leader in computing applications for civil engineering. His work at CMU spans multiple disciplines and departments, including the Robotics Institute and the Engineering and Public Policy Institute. He also created a novel graduate program in Advanced Infrastructure Systems that has become a national model for civil and environmental engineering departments. Garrett will be formally inducted at the NAC’s 2020 Member Annual Meeting.
Hendrickson Appointed to National Academies Committee Faculty Emeritus Chris Hendrickson has been appointed to The National Academies Committee for Accelerating Decarbonization in the
Nothing can stop the spirit of Carnival! Students in professor Jerry Wang’s Spring 12-271 course (Introduction to Computer Applications in CEE) completed an in-class project to develop a truly bold civil engineering vision for Buggy: Excavating and reshaping the course to make Buggy 100 the fastest race yet!
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United States: Technology, Policy and, Societal Dimensions. The twoyear committee is focused on the technologies and policies needed today for full decarbonization by 2050. Specific questions that will be addressed by the 16-member committee include sectoral interactions and systems impacts; technology research, development, and deployment at scale; social, institutional, and behavioral dimensions, particularly equity; and policy coordination and sequencing at local, state, and federal levels.
Wang Named Provost Inclusive Teaching Fellow Assistant Professor Jerry Wang has been selected as one of the 20202021 Provost’s Inclusive Teaching Fellows at the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation. Professor Wang is part of the first cohort for this new program at CMU.
With that typical CMU combination of friendly competition and fierce collaboration, students worked in teams to hunt for elevation profiles of Frew Street that would yield record course times, thereby building their intuition for numerical optimization and the calculus of variations. #Bug-chistochronesFTW
The program is designed to create and support faculty in adopting inclusive teaching practices in their classes. In addition to working closely with Eberly Center consultants to redesign their course, fellows participate in a year-long special interest group.
through confined spaces, especially in nanotubes thousands of times thinner than a hair.
The specific theme this year is to diversify course materials, which encompasses including various marginalized voices in the content, diversifying the kinds of source materials and examples students interact with, and more.
Samaras Named to NASEM Committee
Wang Wins 2020 Frederick Howes Award
Akinci Nominated to WTS Pittsburgh Chapter
Assistant Professor Jerry Wang has been named the 2020 Frederick A. Howes Scholar in Computational Science for his work in nanoscale fluid flows. He was selected by a committee of alumni and friends of the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship.
Professor Burcu Akinci was nominated as an honorary member of the Women Transportation Seminar (WTS) Pittsburgh Chapter in recognition of her work at Carnegie Mellon.
The Howes Award annually goes to recent fellowship alumni in recognition of their research accomplishments and outstanding leadership, integrity, and character. Wang, a fellow from 2014-2018, earned his mechanical engineering doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2019. His thesis focused on the structure of fluids moving
Akinci’s research includes the development of approaches to model and reason about informationrich histories of infrastructure, to streamline construction and facility management processes. She specifically focuses on investigating utilization and integration of building information models with data capture and tracking technologies, such as 3D imaging, embedded sensors and radio-frequency identification systems to capture semantically-rich as-built histories of construction projects and facility operations.
Associate Professor Costa Samaras has been selected to serve as provisional member for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) committee on Advancing a Systems Approach to Studying the Earth: A Strategy for the National Science Foundation. This committee will develop a compelling vision for a systems approach to studying the Earth and identify the facilities, infrastructure, coordinating mechanisms, computing, and workforce development needed to support that vision. The researchers will use virtual and in-person workshops as well as lessons learned from previous and current approaches to integrated research provide advice. They’ll recommend how NSF can support the research community and identify overarching capabilities needed to support a systems approach to studying the Earth.
THE CHALLENGE: To make up for the cancellation of Buggy 100, CMU has decided to undertake a massive civil engineering project to make Buggy 2021 the fastest race ever. Students were able to “excavate” and reshape Frew Street to allow buggies to roll from top to bottom in the minimum possible time. Any elevation was fair game as long as it featured a new drop of 15 meters over a horizontal distance of 450 meters and was a continuous function.
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CEE AND CORONAVIRUS RESEARCH The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked an unprecedented wave of research among investigators across varied disciplines. At CEE, faculty are looking into detection and treatment methods as well as socioeconomic impacts.
USING MACHINE LEARNING TO IDENTIFY PATHOGENS IN WASTEWATER Wastewater epidemiology is emerging as a method for tracking numbers of pathogen infected people in a human population. However, current approaches are labor-intensive due to the need for individual experiments for each pathogen under consideration. Moreover, there is a need for ad hoc knowledge of what pathogen should be sought. Professor Kelvin Gregory and PhD student Esteban Londono are developing a machine learning approach for simultaneously identifying multiple pathogens in metagenomic data from wastewater samples. The machine currently scans the dataset for genomic fragments from SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) and is able to scan simultaneously for many pathogens. Once developed, this technology will detect pathogens and viruses in the population and enable public response before they become a dangerous epidemic.
MECHANOBIOLOGY PREDICTS RAFT FORMATIONS TRIGGERED BY LIGAND-RECEPTOR ACTIVITY ACROSS THE CELL MEMBRANE Professor Kaushik Dayal and Postdoctoral Research Associate Mahnoush Babaei recently co-authored a new study published in the Journal of Mechanics and Physics of Solids. The paper explores how pathogens use clever methods to invade cell membranes—namely, deceiving the membrane into thinking the virus is safe, instigating the formation process of lipid rafts, which are more likely to allow the virus to enter the cell. The study analyzes the physical components of what takes places during ligand-binding. Understanding how viruses use lipid rafts could lead to new approaches to treat and prevent viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. This paper was a collaboration with multiple institutions worldwide, including Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering.
RAPID: CORONAVIRUS, NEW PATTERNS IN ELECTRICITY DEMAND, AND ENERGY INEQUALITY CEE/EPP Assistant Professor Destenie Nock is part of a NSF RAPID grant team. Her portion of the project focuses on developing an energy poverty index based on the distance in energy consumption levels to measure the inability of households to obtain sufficient energy services during the pandemic. The team will also conduct consumer-level statistical and machine learning analyses using large samples of individual-consumer-level hourly smart meter electricity demand data in three cities.
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Brian Belowich tests new equipment that Allows remote students to actively participate in group projects and labs
Fluid Mechanics lab
Back to School - fall ‘20 Things may look at little different this fall, but after four months of careful planning and preparing, we started the academic year and welcomed students back to a hybrid mode involving in-person plus remote instruction.
12-200 project course build in the CEE Design Studio
12-301 Testing Day
Andrea Francioni Rooney assembles and disinfects face shields for project courses
Students discuss 12-200 project plans with professor sarah christian
Adjunct Professor don Coffelt Delivers lecture in 12-301 FALL 2020 17
CEE Students Named Andrew Carnegie Scholars which provides a competitive club option for undergraduate and graduate student swimmers.
Valentina Ortiz de Zárate has established herself as a leader within the university. She has been a consistent member of the executive board of our student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), currently holding the office of Secretary. Ortiz de Zárate is a member of the CEE Undergraduate Student Advisory Council, and helps with remote outreach to admitted students. She is the founder and President of the Carnegie Mellon Swim Club,
In addition, she serves as an Andrew Ambassador, welcoming prospective students and conducting campus tours as well as a Highland Ambassador, developing student-alumni relations. Ortiz de Zárate is also pursuing a minor in Environmental and Sustainability Studies CEE/EPP double major Ryan Rusali has distinguished himself in leadership roles since his first year, when he was elected as a first year representative for the CMU chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Since then, he has held many other ASCE officer
positions and is currently the Director of Events and Outreach. Outreach is a consistent theme in Rusali’s extracurricular activities. He also has worked with elementary and middle school students through the Gelfand Outreach Center. He has served as both an RA for CMU’s PreCollege Program and as an Orientation Counselor for FirstYear Orientation. Rusali is a frequent volunteer with department efforts to reach prospective and admitted students. Rusali has also sought out opportunities in undergraduate research. He completed an independent study on bamboo behavior with Professor Sarah Christian and participated in the CEE summer research program, working on a modeling project with Professor Jerry Wang.
LoGrande Named DoD SMART Scholar PhD student Kevin LoGrande was recently named a SMART (Science, Math, and Research for Transformation) Scholar by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). LoGrande, who is advised by Professor Kaushik Dayal, will receive research and educational funding, a summer internship, and a guaranteed position with the DoD after graduation. The program was created to enhance the DoD workforce with talented and innovative scientists, engineers, and researchers. Awardees spend summers in paid internships working for the DoD inside labs and agencies of the Army, Navy, or Air Force. LoGrande spent his summer
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internship at an Army research lab in Aberdeen, MD. “I’m excited that this program provides funding in what I want to research during the school year,” he says. “Knowing I have job placement after graduation is also a big relief—it provides stability.” “I’ll be working with a specialist in surrogate modeling, which is a way of simplifying and reducing the complexities of mathematical modeling.” On the application, he spoke to his versatility—emphasizing his knowledge in finite element analysis, math, and continuum mechanics. “I wanted them to see that my skills in both numerical
and analytical methods are widely applicable.” LoGrande is excited at the prospect of having his research funded. “The research I do during the academic year could line up with what I do in Maryland—or it could not. That part is up to me. Freedom to choose my path is one of the reasons that I applied for this scholarship.”
CEE Grad Student Releases 100th Podcast episode of her podcast “Blk+ In Grad School,” which released its 100th episode early this year. Whitmore began recording these podcasts the day of her graduate orientation at CMU. She recorded 10 total episodes — more than two months’ worth — before she felt ready to start releasing them.
Allanté Whitmore guides the conversation naturally, as though there weren’t a studio microphone between her and Shena Marshall, her current interview subject. The two eagerly swap stories in a soundproof studio about how they came to graduate school at CMU. Whitmore will take the recording and send it to an editor, who will shape it into an
“I used to feel like I wasn’t good enough for graduate school, and I think that experience is very common, especially when you’re the only person in the classroom who looks like you,” Whitmore said. “Finding people, communities, and resources to hold you up is key. One day it just clicked — let me share this experience.” Since starting the podcast, Whitmore has interacted with hundreds of other grad students and people looking to go to grad school, offering wisdom and advice and sharing experience.
She’s connected with listeners through Twitter and Instagram, and hosts the “Grad School Success Summit,” a virtual summit that aids newly admitted women and people of color for grad programs in the fall. Whitmore, a GEM Associate Fellow, is currently pursuing a joint PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering & Engineering and Public Policy from CMU’s College of Engineering. Her work focuses on improving mobility and accessibility with autonomous vehicles, specifically in integrating autonomous vehicles with public transport. She likes to use the icebreaker, “My name is Allanté, which is a car. I come from Detroit, the Motor City. And at CMU, I study cars.” Her podcast can be found at blkingradschool.com.
Jones Named Steinbrenner Institute and Heinz Presidential Fellow topics align with the Institute’s strategic focus areas of energy transition strategies, and urban infrastructure and sustainable cities.
The Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research at Carnegie Mellon University has selected Andrew Jones as one of four Steinbrenner Research Fellows. The graduate fellowship program provides support to exceptional, second-year Carnegie Mellon students who work on cuttingedge environmental research. The interdisciplinary research projects’
Jones is a dual degree PhD student in Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and Engineering and Public Policy (EPP). He received his BS in Biological Engineering from the University of Florida in 2010 and his MS in Energy Science, Technology & Policy with a concentration in CEE from Carnegie Mellon in 2019. Jones is a certified middle school mathematics teacher, Teach for America alumnus, and has several years of teaching experience in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
He also has experience in CSR consulting focused on environmental, social, and governance performance and benchmarking for infrastructure entities. His academic experience has given him the opportunity to study renewable energy and sustainability at Reykjavik University, conduct research exploring the carbon storage capabilities of modified biochar, and various graduate projects focused on energy. His experiences have cultivated his research interests in equitable energy systems, a just energy transition, and climate change mitigation. Jones is co-advised by professors Costa Samaras and Destenie Nock.
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Lai BUILDS LOCATION-SPECIFIC CLIMATE FORECASTING TOOLS FOR ENGINEERS Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) Model to Forecast Near-Term Regional Temperature and Precipitation,” was recently published in the AMS Journal of Weather and Forecasting.
Yuchuan Lai is in the process of completing his PhD studies remotely, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But it’s not slowing his research on climate change and engineering adaptations. Lai’s second paper, co-written with his advisor Professor Dave Dzombak, “Use of the
Lai began working on the project in 2017, expanding previous research on historical climate change in different cities. Lai then created 20-year, city-specific climate projections for engineers. The ARIMA-based statistical forecasting model may be utilized to create location-specific temperature and precipitation forecasts for use in civil and environmental engineering applications.
His focus on climate change started during graduate school—as a civil engineering undergrad, Lai focused on more traditional engineering problems but his master’s degree coursework at Carnegie Mellon shifted his direction. “Classes including Climate Change Adaptation for Infrastructure with Costa Samaras and Climate Change Science and Solutions with Parth Vashinav allowed me to think outside the views of a traditional engineering student. These courses enabled me to learn more about climate science and to frame the problems by combining civil and environmental engineering and climate science.”
Choudhary’s Team wins “Best Overall Design” Thanks to this year’s Rethink the Rink competition, a partnership with The Pittsburgh Penguins, CMU College of Engineering, and Covestro, hockey players may soon have access to innovative safety gear for arms and shoulders that’s both comfortable and protective. Rethink the Rink is a week-long Makea-thon that challenged students, including undergraduate Dhruv Choudhary, to find solutions that provide hockey players with a greater range of motion and flexibility—while still providing appropriate coverage. He explains that equipment currently used in the NHL is often altered by players because it’s constrictive. But the changes decrease safety and protection. “The players’ shoulder and elbow pads are also known to slip-off upon impact and cause serious injuries,” states Choudhary.
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He was assigned to work in a team with students that collaborated to design an integrated shoulder-elbow pad sleeve that fits securely to a player’s body. The finished design not only provides comfort and mobility, it prevents slippage of the padding upon impact. He recommended that the elbow pad protection be made up of smaller parts that could move with the elbow. “We developed a new pad that curls up and forms a solid protection layer when the elbow is bent,” he adds. The pad is able to provide a full range of motion, straightening out with the elbow when the arm is stretched.
Good communication and team decisions led to a product that was tested by professionals, including retired hockey players and scientists from Covestro, and awarded “Best Overall Design” in the competition. ____ Rethink the Rink was held prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
CEE Summer Research Program When many students had summer jobs and internships canceled due to the pandemic, CEE expanded our department Summer Research Program, almost doubling the number of supported students. CEE faculty stepped up and offered additional projects that could be conducted remotely. At the end of the 8-week Summer Research Program we held the first-ever CEE virtual poster session as the concluding event. Professors Jerry Wang and Susan Finger provided overall management of the program and organized the virtual poster session in partnership with Gather, a company with an innovative tool for interactive online conferences. We thank CEE alum Frank Sidari (MS ‘02) for his financial support of our virtual poster session, which was a big success and fun for all.
Alum Francis Named to NASEM Committee
alumni news CEE alum Royce A. Francis (MS ‘06, PhD ‘09) has been selected to serve as provisional member for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) committee on Advancing a Systems Approach to Studying the Earth: A Strategy for the National Science Foundation. This committee will develop a compelling vision for a systems approach to studying the Earth and identify facilities, infrastructure, coordinating mechanisms, computing, and workforce development needed to support that vision. With input from virtual and in-person workshops and lessons learned from previous and current approaches to integrated research at NSF, the
committee also will provide advice on how NSF can support the research community in meeting the vision and identifying overarching capabilities needed to support a systems approach to studying the Earth. Francis is an associate professor in the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering at George Washington University. His overall research vision is to conduct research, teaching, and service that facilitates sustainable habitation of the built environment. He unifies these multi-disciplinary interests under the Earth Systems Engineering and Management (ESEM) paradigm for civil/environmental systems design and analysis.
OUR GRADUATES ACHIEVE REMARKABLE SUCCESSES EVERY DAY. Do you have some good news to share? Please send us an email: mmobley@andrew.cmu.edu FALL 2020 21
Alum Helps Organizations Construct the Workplace of Tomorrow As Carnegie Mellon alum Harvey Beckham, P.E. (CE and EPP ’90), left his office in March of 2020, everyone around him was also departing. His colleagues were preparing to work from home in response to COVID-19, but Beckham was preparing for something more. Before the pandemic began, he had decided to launch his own business, GPS Partners, offering conception-to-completion project advising services in commercial real estate construction and design. “I was going home like everybody else, but I was going out to a new job, a new adventure, a new everything,” he says. After 30 years in the field, Beckham was ready to strike out on his own. He started his engineering career in 1990 in building repair and restoration, lacing up his boots every day to work at job sites across Washington, DC. Within a mere six months, however, Harvey Beckham replaced his boots with loafers as he transitioned into project management. It was an area he’d first found a passion for at CMU, fondly recalling time spent working closely with CEE professors like Tung Au and Dave Dzombak. “Starting civil engineering and finding project management and really getting into engineering economics, I loved it,” he says. “It felt like home.” As Beckham progressed in his career, he went on to earn an MBA and excel across various companies, focusing on interior and workspace construction. By 2001, he had managed projects that included developing a 200-acre corporate campus for MCI WorldCom, converting a historic row home into an office for the Embassy of the Republic of Botswana, and developing cutting-edge medical research laboratories for the National Institute of Health. Before starting GPS Partners, he served as Senior Vice President for a prominent real estate services firm. In every role, Beckham has had a front-row seat to changes in the
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workplace. “Planning a workspace went from paint and carpet to something that’s much more technical to put together,” says Beckham. Yet, he had seen a growing gap between the expertise needed for modern interior projects and the way most interior workspace construction was designed and managed. Professional engineers were rarely involved outside MEP design, and, too often, the crucial early planning needed for success was neglected. Here, Beckham found an excellent opportunity that perfectly aligned with his experience and passion, and soon GPS Partners (short for Great Project Solutions) was born. GPS began as a professionally based workspace planning firm, offering PE expertise to start and with future growth plans to include design professionals. Even as the start of his business aligned with the start of a pandemic, Beckham has found that the skills he developed at CMU and honed over his career have positioned him well to meet his clients’ needs. In particular, organizations have a renewed focus on indoor air quality (IAQ) and fluid mechanics (air flow)—topics that were at the heart of Beckham’s civil and environmental engineering classes.
“I lean on that knowledge heavily when talking with clients. I’m not a pandemic specialist, but because I understand airflow and concentrations of pollutants and microns, I can read the CDC reports and synthesize the takeaways,” he says. Looking to the future, Beckham sees workplaces evolving in other substantial ways using lessons learned from recent months. “Any company designing or redeveloping a space will not only keep COVID and IAQ in mind but also be asking what has been beneficial and what has been detrimental in how employees have been working,” he says. “The result is not going to be the same workplace.” As Beckham continues to grow GPS Partners to help clients adapt their workspace to meet these changing needs, he has found support and camaraderie from fellow alumni who have offered invaluable insights and shared their experiences running a business. “I have a strong personal network of friends from school who are very accomplished in their careers and have so much to offer,” he says. “Since I have started my business, I have absolutely seen the power of the CMU network and my incredible CMU friendships, and I am proud to be a Carnegie Mellon graduate.”
CEE GIVING
New Fund Lets Alumni Directly Support CEE Student Activities From poster sessions to professional speakers to department-wide meet-ups over breakfast and lunch, the CEE Department is known for sponsoring activities and events that not only develop valuable engineering knowledge and skills but also foster community and connection. Soon, individuals will be able to give directly to such events and activities through CEE’s new Student Activities Fund, launching in Fall 2020. CEE alumni, faculty, staff, and friends interested in a student-activityfocused gift to the department will be able to give to the Student Activities Fund with a clear understanding of how their gift will be used in service of the department’s students and events. “On our website, you will see ideas of what you can support and you’ll have the ability to designate precisely
what you would like your gift to go towards, for example, a particular activity or project course,” explains Heather Cain, CEE Alumni Relations and Events Manager. “We’re excited because this is a completely new type of fund for CEE. It’s an opportunity to give back to things that you participated in while you were at CMU and to make a really direct and immediate impact on students.” “Several members of our CEE Alumni Advisory Council expressed their interest and that of other alums in helping to support specific student activities in the department,” said CEE Head Dave Dzombak. “Such alumni support means a great deal to our students and to the department. We are pleased to establish the Student Activities Fund to provide more options for our alums to help support the department in ways that are most meaningful for them.”
Those interested in giving to the Student Activities Fund will be able to do so at cmu.edu/cee/giving, where visitors can also find information on funds dedicated to supporting CEE student travel to professional events, CEE laboratory improvements, CEE teaching professors, and more.
Summer Research Poster Session Summer 2019
Graduate Appreciation Event Spring 2018
12-200 Project Course Fall 2020
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CEE Rising Stars CEE is proud to be the host for the 2020 CEE Rising Stars workshop program. Rising Stars is a workshop for outstanding women doctoral students and postdocs who are interested in pursuing teaching and research careers in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Launched at MIT in 2012, this workshop has been hosted at several universities. Participants interact with faculty members from Carnegie Mellon and other institutions, build a network with scholars in the field and receive career advice. This workshop includes five, small-group remote sessions that discuss topics centering on different career paths, securing a faculty appointment, and thriving as a new faculty member. “We are excited to host the Rising Stars in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon,” says co-organizer Assistant Teaching Professor Sarah Christian. “We are looking forward to bringing together women at the forefront of our field, sharing our experiences, and providing guidance as they embark upon their academic career.” 24 CEE NEWS
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Burcu Akinci
Paul Christiano Professor Associate Dean for Research College of Engineering Director Engineering Research Accelerator
Susan Finger Professor
Associate Dean IDeATe
Sarah Christian
Assistant Teaching Professor
Mahnoush Babaei
Postdoctoral Research Associate
