2018 Swanson School Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Newsletter

ANNUAL PUBLICATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH | SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING FALL 2018

Food for Thought

CEE Faculty Carla Ng and Leanne Gilbertson Land Journal Covers Fishy Chemicals in Farmed Salmon Carla Ng goes against the current to show livestock feed, more than location, can accurately predict toxic chemicals in food.

Persistent organic pollutants – or POPs – skulk around the environment threatening human health through direct contact, inhalation, and most commonly, eating contaminated food. As people become more aware of their food’s origin, new research at the University of Pittsburgh suggests it might be just as important to pay attention to the origin of your food’s food.

The American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science & Technology featured research by Assistant Professor Carla Ng on the June 19 cover. Dr. Ng tracked the presence of a class of synthetic flame retardants called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), which were once a popular additive to increase fire resistance in consumer products such as electronics, textiles, and plastics (DOI: 10.1021/ acs.est.8b00146).

“The United States and much of Europe banned several PBDEs in 2004 because of environmental and public health concerns,” says Dr. Ng. “PBDEs can act as endocrine disruptors and cause developmental effects. Children are particularly vulnerable.”

The Stockholm Convention, an international environmental treaty established to identify and eliminate organic pollutants, listed PBDEs as persistent organic pollutants in 2009.

Despite restrictions on their use, PBDEs continue to be released into the environment because of their long lifetime and abundance in consumer goods. They are particularly dense in areas such as China, Thailand, and Vietnam which process a lot of electronic waste and do not regulate much of their recycling.

“The international food trade system is becoming increasingly global in nature and this applies to animal feed as well. Fish farming operations may import their feed or feed ingredients from a number of countries, including those without advanced food safety regulations,” explains Dr. Ng. Most models to predict human exposure to pollutants typically focus on people in relation to their local environment. Dr. Ng’s model compared a variety of factors to find the best predictor of PBDEs in farmed salmon, including pollutants inhaled through gills, how the fish metabolized and eliminated pollutants, and of course, the concentration of pollutants in the feed.

She says, “We found that feed is relatively less important in areas that already have high concentrations of pollutants in the environment.

Drs. Carla Ng (left) and Leanne Gilbertson

However, in otherwise clean and well-regulated environments, contaminated feed can be thousands of times more significant than the location of the farm for determining the PBDE content of salmon fillets.”

Dr. Ng says the model could be modified and applied to other fish with high global trading volumes such as tilapia or red snapper. It could also continued on next page > > >

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Greetings from the Chair Dear friends, As we begin a new academic year, it is my pleasure to share with you some of the outstanding stories from our department. This promises to be another strong enrollment year for the Swanson School in general and for our department in particular, but our greatest anticipation for the year ahead is welcoming Dr. James Martin II as Pitt’s tenth Dean of Engineering.

Dean Martin joins us from Clemson University, where he was the Bob Benmosche Professor and Chair of the Glenn Department of Civil Engineering – so you can especially see why we are excited to welcome him! He is internationally recognized for his research on earthquakes and is regularly called upon to serve on field teams after earthquakes strike and was the Team Leader for the National Science Foundation’s Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance Team’s study of the 2011 earthquake in Virginia and Washington, DC. He was also founding director of Clemson’s Risk Engineering and Systems Analytics Institute, where he brought together industry, government, and academic partners to develop programs that advance transdisciplinary research and education while addressing industry needs. I hope you will join me in welcoming Dean Martin as well as thanking his predecessor, Gerald Holder, for his dedication to the Swanson School for nearly three decades.

As always, the strength of our department is built upon the outstanding reputation of our faculty and their excellence in teaching, research, and mentoring. I am especially proud of several of our faculty, including Leanne Gilbertson and Carla Ng, who have established themselves as research

powerhouses and who have each landed cover articles in prestigious journals.

Likewise, several others have been recognized for their impact on diversity, student success, and encouraging the next generation of engineering students. I think you’ll enjoy their dedication in the several student features in this issue.

I hope you will continue to follow us at engineering.pitt.edu/civil for the latest news, as well as on Twitter at @PittCivilEnvEng and on LinkedIn under “University of Pittsburgh Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.” Of course, I also look forward to seeing you at upcoming conferences and events, and we’re always happy to welcome you back to campus.

Best wishes for the year ahead!

Radisav Vidic, PhD, P.E. William Keppler Whiteford Professor and Department Chair

Food for Thought... continued from page 1 be used to predict pollutant content in livestock or feeds produced in contamination “hot spots.”

“Hot spots are places identified as having high levels of pollutants,” says Dr. Ng. “As these chemicals circulate through the environment, much ends up in the ocean. It’s extremely important to pay attention to the sourcing of ocean commodities and areas where pollutant concentrations are particularly high.”

Dr. Ng’s model also helps inform contamination control strategies such as substituting fish oils for plant-based materials or taking measures to decontaminate fish oil before human consumption.

The New Standards of Sustainability Leanne Gilbertson takes a “systems approach” to designing nanotechnologies for agriculture In 1948, Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Müller received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the insecticide properties of organochlorine dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, or DDT. Many heralded it as a “miracle chemical” capable of protecting people from diseasecarrying insects. Twenty-four years later, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, established by President Richard Nixon, banned DDT for threatening the environment, especially birds of prey, and human health.

“DDT is interesting because it effectively eradicated serious diseases like typhus and malaria but was banned after later realizing its adverse impacts,” says Assistant Professor Leanne Gilbertson. “There are many examples of new technologies that aren’t so ‘green’ when you consider the entire product life cycle such as compact fluorescent lights that rely on toxic mercury for energy-efficiency gains, solar panels made with finite and rare metals, or electric cars charged by electricity generated from coal.”

At Pitt, Dr. Gilbertson’s research group takes a “systems approach” to new technologies to determine their impact on the environment from production to disposal. Last December,

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her research team published a review (DOI: 10.1039/c7en00766c) in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Environmental Science: Nano featuring some of the ways nanotechnology might enhance agriculture sustainability, so long as designers and developers of these innovative solutions see the forest for the trees.

“In sustainable engineering, our goal is to consider lasting effects when designing new technologies rather than narrowly focusing on the intended benefit,” says Dr. Gilbertson.

“In agriculture, the potential exposure to new materials will almost always be high, so focusing design on reducing the inherent hazard, for example, would have a big impact.”

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization predicts a 34 percent increase in world population and about a 70 percent required increase in food production by 2050. The increased demand for food will affect the entire supply chain including farmers, manufacturers, processors, suppliers, retailers, and consumers.

Each individual stakeholder only provides a snapshot of new technology’s impact on the environment, but taking a systems approach forces an account of the full picture.

“A cost-benefit analysis is a common approach to quantify the usefulness of a new technology.

Sustainable engineers evaluate new technologies similarly except we don’t only use dollars. We include other metrics like energy consumption or emissions to the environment. Accounting for all the various stakeholders, including their incentives and tradeoffs, allows us to define a design space where there’s a benefit to using emerging technologies,” says Dr. Gilbertson.

Another paper (DOI: 10.1021/ acssuschemeng.7b03600) recently published

by Dr. Gilbertson and her team appears in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering and shows how a sustainability metric called “atom conversion efficiency” could accurately depict the environmental impact of chemical fertilizers.

Nitrogen, for example, is a potent fertilizer, but

can contaminate drinking water, deplete oxygen supplies in bodies of water, and create massive dead zones in water bodies like the Gulf of Mexico.

“Nitrogen is a primary macronutrient in fertilizers, but only about 50 percent actually reaches the crop, meaning the other half is released to the environment. Nanotechnology could be used to increase the amount of nutrient that reaches the crop, simultaneously decreasing the adverse impacts on the environment,” explains Dr. Gilbertson.

Using corn as the model crop, Dr. Gilbertson’s paper outlines how atom conversion efficiency tracks nitrogen through its entire agricultural lifecycle, from raw form to how much nitrogen ends up in a corn kernel. Keeping nitrogen on the farm protects the environment and reduces embedded energy loss – or the massive amounts of energy consumed during the production of fertilizer.

“Atom conversion efficiency identifies the greatest inefficiencies in a fertilizer system, and thus, scientists and engineers can use it to inform technology development to improve these particular areas of impact,” says Dr. Gilbertson. “Nanotechnology has the potential to revolutionize farming with nano-enabled fertilizers, crop growth regulators, pesticides, packaging materials, and sensors to monitor plant vitals. However, it’s important to take a systems approach to determine which new technologies will have the most desirable impact on the environment before they leave the lab.”

If the only metric is controlling diseasecarrying insect populations, then DDT is a “miracle chemical.” That designation quickly disappears when considering the entire lifecycle, including DDT’s adverse environmental impacts and potential to cause cancer in humans.

Unfortunately, it had already been in use for three decades before the EPA banned it. Dr. Gilbertson is trying to make sure those same mistakes aren’t repeated in nano-agriculture.

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Rising Above T

his summer the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering utilized its expertise in transportation infrastructure to develop a new research consortium to address challenges faced by industry and government agencies.

IRISE – The Center for Impactful Resilient Infrastructure Science and Engineering – will engage in a public-private collaboration, while employing a systems approach toward optimizing infrastructure solutions.

“Americans have daily reminders of the decline of our infrastructure… potholes, traffic delays, bridge closures…this list goes on” noted Julie Vandenbossche, Associate Professor. “This is a problem we cannot buy our way out of. Innovative materials and engineering solutions will be required that are centered around a more sustainable, holistic approach to not only rebuild, but to minimize future disruptions.”

According to Vandenbossche, IRISE research will be focused in part on producing solutions that lead to more durable, longer lasting transportation infrastructure. In particular, solutions will be driven by: • Providing safe, efficient and affordable transportation.

• Maintaining accessibility to services, such as healthcare, at all times.

• Meeting quality of life needs when planning projects. Improving roadway infrastructure durability should have a minimal cost to environmental health and quality of life.

To meet these goals, research will focus on knowledge, decision making, material durability and structural repair. Each of these areas

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will be advanced from both an individual domain (i.e., pavements and bridges) and an overall infrastructure system perspective. These four areas include identifying and gathering information critical to the decision making process; accurately assessing the condition of the infrastructure system through an integrated system analysis of the data collected for each individual domain, as well as an analysis of the user costs and benefits associated with deteriorating infrastructure and rehabilitation projects; and identifying innovative construction materials and design and construction methods that will produce a more viable infrastructure system.

IRISE will develop innovative solutions for addressing the declining transportation infrastructure through a cooperative research program that brings together owners, designers, material suppliers, and constructors of these projects. IRISE is unique in that it will be supported by both public and private organizations to help assure the research topics are relevant and the resulting innovative solutions are implementable.

“Our outstanding civil engineering faculty will be collaborating with other faculty from the Swanson School as well as the Graduate School of Public Health and the School of Computing and Information in providing implementable solutions to these complex problems,” Dr. Vandenbossche said. “As our consortium grows and we identify more issues from the public and private sectors, we have the ability to call upon experts from several disciplines across the university as well as around the country.”

For more information, visit engineering.pitt.edu/irise.

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“Inventor Labs”

Look to Inspire the Next Generation of Green Engineers

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new grant will encourage collaboration between university engineering students and K-12 students across the region.

The funding will support the creation of Inventor Labs that strengthen community ties by providing hands-on learning spaces in underserved schools and communities in the region.

“Our goal is to engage students from a young age through the time they start applying to colleges by giving them opportunities to interact with science and technology,” says Assistant Professor David Sanchez. “This is the third consecutive year Pitt received the award, and it will help us continue to grow the large network of University resources we share with our community neighbors.”

The $35,000 grant comes from Constellation, an Exelon company – a provider of power, natural gas, and renewable energy headquartered in Baltimore – as part of its E2 Energy to EducateSM program. Dr. Sanchez is the director of the Energy to Educate program at Pitt and coordinates University efforts to engage K-12 students, teachers, and

communities with concepts in clean energy solutions and sustainability.

“The Community Engagement Center and the Manufacturing Assistance Center Makerspace are two existing programs at the University of Pittsburgh we are leveraging in particular to help achieve our goal of strengthening our community presence and creating opportunities for students to learn about energy and sustainable engineering,” Dr. Sanchez says.

The heart of the project is student participation and the development of student-made, energy technology prototypes. Through a series of “Design-Build” challenges, students will learn about sustainability issues surrounding electric cars, wind and water turbines, and waste-heat and wastewater.

Dr. Sanchez plans to help a total of 60 student teams this year learn about engineering design, embedded systems, programming, and energy devices. Students will be able to showcase their creations at their schools, enter them in tech competitions, and implement them in their communities.

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f f O g n i p p a C r e h t o An l u f s s Succe Year

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Within the first week of returning to campus each semester, about three dozen civil engineering seniors gather to brainstorm project ideas and construct teams for the Senior Design Course. They will spend the next 15 weeks transforming their ideas into implementable projects complete with detailed plans for all the anticipated – and many of the unforeseeable – challenges that come with creating the next successful improvement to society’s infrastructure.

The semester concludes with an hour-long presentation by each team, emphasizing student professionalism and a strong ability to communicate months of intensive work to an audience of classmates, professors, and professional engineers. If everything goes as planned, the final presentation marks the transition from civil engineering student to civil engineer.

“Before moving on to the next stage of their development, students must demonstrate through the course that they have learned a great deal in their classes and an ability to apply what they learned to challenges they might not have seen before,” says Radisav Vidic, chair of the Swanson School’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “For this reason, the Senior Design Course is the epitome of our undergraduate education.”

Designing the Right Idea “Every project is interesting, or we wouldn’t do it,” says John Oyler, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering.

Dr. Oyler has been involved with Pitt’s Senior Design Course as coordinator for the past 27 years. All senior engineering

students must complete the course during their final semesters, so Dr. Oyler has helped hundreds of Pitt engineers take their final steps toward graduation. However, not every idea starts out as a hole-in-one.

“Last semester we had a team who wanted to redesign the golf course in Schenley Park. I told them, ‘You have to explain to me why this is worth doing.’ They came up with a strong proposal to support their ideas and managed to prove to us that this is really a full-blown civil engineering project that would benefit people who used the course,” says Dr. Oyler.

Another idea grew out of the department’s increasingly popular construction management program. The team specifically wanted to undertake a large project with wide scope. They found a match based on a suggestion by John Sebastian, professor of civil and environmental engineering. The idea was to devise a feasible plan for converting a former industrial site along Pittsburgh’s North Shore into a booming business and recreational district.

“Thanks to Professor Sebastian, we were able to get information on a project in the works that is much too big for anybody – or at least any one group,” Dr. Oyler says. “When these students gave their presentation, it became clear somebody has to be the brains behind a project, regardless how big it is, and they were the right ones for the job.”

During the spring semester of 2018, student teams came up with plans to improve and update a multipurpose campus building, design a microbrewery on the Monongahela River, and map out a revitalization strategy for a state park. One of the teams decided to focus on a major highway interchange and found the right combination of specialties was the best way to keep things running smoothly.

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Intersecting Disciplines “The ideal team is multidisciplinary. When we build a team, we try to represent as many different specialties as we can,” explains Dr. Oyler.

Last semester, TBD Engineering formed to approach one of Pittsburgh most ubiquitous and infuriating infrastructure problems: traffic jams. The students targeted the Interstate 79 and State Route 51 interchange near Neville Island, northwest of Pittsburgh.

“We were trying to decide on a project, and when someone suggested redesigning the interchange, one of our team members, Nick Bruni, jumped at the opportunity to fix it,” says Amedeo Hirata, team leader of TBD Engineering. “He lives near the intersection and has to drive through it every day.”

The two heavily-trafficked highways lack several features needed to qualify their meeting as a full interchange. When driving southbound on I-79, there is no direct route to transfer onto PA-51. As a result, commuters are forced to take an eight- to 15-minute detour through Neville Island which increases overall travel and congestion. By studying crash reports, they also found the northbound on ramp to I-79 from PA-51 had inadequate merging and sight distances. As a result, it is responsible for a high number of incidents.

“Right now the intersection is kind of a free-for-all, and traffic backups can stretch for up to a mile and a half during rush hour. We did lots of research and decided to propose a new design configuration called a ‘single point urban interchange.’ The proposal included a traffic light to reduce the number of potential crash zones without slowing things down,” says Hirata.

Hirata handled the structural design component while working with teammates specializing in geometric, transportation, and geotechnical design

as well as construction management. He says the team quickly reached a consensus that their composition was the right fit for completing the project.

“As a team leader, I was really motivated to choose teammates who were recognized as the best students in my graduating class. This was my favorite undergraduate course because of the amount of freedom we were allowed right off the bat and the experience of collaborating in an environment with so many talented people,” Hirata says.

Looking Forward to the Future “The Senior Design projects are not replicas of the design problems students have already seen in their other courses,” says Dr. Oyler. “The students are completing projects in the same way a project is completed outside of the classroom. By the end of the semester, they must have shown their capability to bring a project completely from start to finish.”

Each semester brings a new cohort of students and project ideas waiting for cultivation. In fall 2018, one idea gaining traction is working with Allegheny County representatives to clean mine drainage pollution in Plum Borough’s Boyce Park. Another project has students looking to reduce flooding in Bridgeville in the wake of a June 20th storm which damaged many structures and caused one fatality.

Regardless of the individual challenges, all senior design teams will have to find a way to combine their knowledge a variety of civil engineering specialties into a plans for improving surrounding communities and the lives of the people that live there.

“As civil engineers, we have an obligation to design, build, and maintain society’s infrastructure. The closest we can get these projects to that objective is always the goal,” says Dr. Oyler.

Living Legacy: Dr. John Oyler

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or the past three decades, Dr. Oyler has guided civil engineers through the transition from undergraduate students to graduates and professionals. He remains an active and nationally-renowned member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

This past winter, the Pittsburgh chapter of the ASCE honored Dr. Oyler with the 2017 Michael A. Gross Meritorious Service Award in recognition of outstanding contributions to the civil engineering profession, education, and community.

The award, named after Michael A. Gross – a proud alumnus of the department (Class of 1930)

who provided nearly 70 years of continuous service to the ASCE Pittsburgh Section – recognizes a lifetime of work and commitment to the profession. It is one of the society’s most prestigious recognitions and is selectively bestowed, sometimes between spans of several years.

Dr. Oyler’s nomination for the award came from former students wishing to pay tribute to his role in their professional development and the impact he has had on countless other students over the years.

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Civil Engineering Researcher James Martin Named 10th Dean of Swanson School

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ames R. Martin II, the Bob Benmosche Professor and Chair of the Glenn Department of Civil Engineering at Clemson University, this August began his new position as U.S. Steel Dean of the Swanson School of Engineering. He succeeds Gerald D. Holder, who served as dean since 1996.

As department chair, Dean Martin led the development of new curricula, establishment of new degree programs and forged new transdisciplinary research collaborations, having secured two institutional National Science Foundation (NSF) grants to implement innovations in engineering programs at Clemson and 60 other engineering schools across the nation. He also developed global partnerships, including a new dual PhD civil engineering degree program with top-ranked Tongji University in China. This program is similar to Pitt’s engineering partnership with Sichuan University.

At Clemson, Dean Martin also served as the founding director of Clemson’s Risk Engineering and Systems Analytics (RESA) Center, which serves as a transdisciplinary “collision space” for the interaction of cutting-edge research, academic programs and corporate partnerships. Under

his leadership, RESA was founded with support from a long-term corporate partnership with the world’s largest insurance firm. He said there are many parallels between his experience and Pitt’s emphasis on research and innovation across all disciplines and sectors.

“I’m excited to join the Swanson School and the entire campus community, especially because of the amazing people here. Pitt has a strong sense of community and a pervasive ‘can do’ mindset that is unique and inspiring,” Dean Martin said.

“It’s easy to see why there are so many worldclass programs. As an elite comprehensive university located in a city that’s always been known for innovation and forward thinking, all of the critical ingredients are in place.”

Prior to Clemson, he spent more than 20 years at Virginia Tech on the civil engineering faculty and served five years as director of the Disaster Risk Management Institute. His professional career focused on earthquake engineering and risk assessment of natural hazards. He taught undergraduate and graduate courses in geotechnical and earthquake engineering, foundation engineering and disaster risk management, among others.

Internationally recognized for his research on earthquakes, his work has contributed to improved earthquake building code standards in the central and eastern United States. He is regularly called upon to serve on field teams after earthquakes strike and was the team leader for the NSF-sponsored study of the 2011 earthquake in Virginia and Washington, D.C. He led similar studies in Turkey and Japan. Dean Martin has served as an international earthquake engineering consultant on more than 100 major infrastructure projects for global corporations, engineering firms and government agencies.

He earned a bachelor of science in civil engineering from The Citadel, and both a master of science and a doctorate in civil engineering from Virginia Tech. Dean Martin has received numerous national, state and university awards for research, teaching and professional service, including the American Society of Civil Engineer’s Norman Medal, the highest honor for published work in his field. He was inducted into the Civil Engineering Department’s Academy of Distinguished Alumni at Virginia Tech in 2015.

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2017-2018 PhDs Conferred Wei Fu Hydraulic Fracture Interacting with Partially-Cemented and Non-Persistent Natural Fracture (Advisor: Andrew Bunger)

2018 Distinguished CEE Alumnus: Victor Bertolina

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his year’s recipient of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award is Victor Bertolina, BSCE ’71, President of SAI Consulting Engineers, Inc. He was one of seven Swanson School alumni honored in April at the 54th annual Distinguished Alumni Banquet.

Gerald D. Holder, past U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering, noted, “After graduating from Pitt in 1971 and earning his commission in the United States Army, Vic worked at the West Virginia Department of Highways and later PennDOT and the city of Pittsburgh as a Bridge Engineer. This was the springboard to his more than forty-year career at SAI Consulting Engineers. We applaud Vic for his accomplishments in the field of engineering, and for helping to build bridges that connect us.”

Victor Bertolina graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1971 and then received a commission in the United States Army as a Second Lieutenant. He worked for the West Virginia Department of Highways as a Civil Engineer Trainee from January to June 1972 before entering Officer Basic Training at Ft. Benning, Ga. In September 1972 he was hired by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) and performed a variety of duties including bridge inspection, bridge design, and review of construction documents and inspection reports.

Mr. Bertolina left PennDOT in March 1978 to serve as a bridge engineer for the City of Pittsburgh Department of Engineering and Construction.

In 1977 Mr. Bertolina registered as a professional engineer in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and subsequently as a P.E. in West Virginia, South Carolina, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, and Kansas. He joined SAI Consulting Engineers, Inc. in June 1979 as a project engineer in the structure department performing bridge inspections, bridge analysis, and bridge design before becoming manager of SAI’s Structure Department. Mr. Bertolina later served SAI as Vice President, Engineering and today as President where he is responsible for the management of all functions and personnel engaged in structure design, highway design, construction inspection, in-depth bridge inspection, and structural analysis.

Mr. Bertolina has been involved with several notable bridge projects in the Pittsburgh region, including the Liberty Bridge, Fleming Park Bridge, Clairton-Glassport Bridge, Wabash HOV Bridge, and the rehabilitation of the 6th, 7th, and 9th Street Bridges. During his military career he was a member of the United States Army Reserve 420th Combat Engineers, rose to rank of Captain, and held the position of Company Executive Officer.

Mr. Bertolina has been a member of the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania’s International Bridge Conference Committee for more than 25 years. His community involvement includes being a long-term member of the Swanson School’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Visiting Committee, and a past parish council member and Sunday School Teacher at Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church.

Kevin Ketchman Utilizing the Interconnectivity of Multisector Communities for Innovative Building Energy Efficiency Methods (Advisor: Melissa Bilec) Daniel Lipus Microbiology of Hydraulic Fracturing Wastewater (Advisor: Kyle Bibby) Guanyi Lu Hydraulic Fracture Initiation and Propagation under Subcritical Conditions (Advisor: Andrew Bunger) Shawn Platt Bond and Serviceability of Titanium Reinforcing Bars for Concrete (Advisor: Kent Harries) Jorge Vendries Developing an Electricity-Specific Multi-Regional Input-Output Model for Energy Policy Evaluation and Life Cycle Assessment (Advisor: Vikas Khanna) Pengju Xing Hydraulic Fracture Containment in Layered Reservoirs (Advisor: Andrew Bunger) Navid Zolfaghari Hydraulic Fracture Driven

by Turbulent Flow (Advisor: Andrew Bunger)

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Data-driven Dialogue Pitt, Penn State and Shale Network bring groups together on water quality concerns for research published in Science

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t’s been a decade since the start of the Marcellus Shale gas boom in Pennsylvania, and today more than 10,000 unconventional gas wells dot the state’s hills and valleys.

The industry’s rapid development created economic opportunities for many, but also brought environmental concerns, and sometimes led to contentious conversations.

A team of researchers studying water quality around hydraulic fracturing, the process used to extract gas from rock deep underground, have found a blueprint to move those conversations forward.

Shale Network for the past six years has fostered a dialogue about shale drilling between concerned citizens, watershed groups, government regulators and personnel from large energy companies by focusing on publicly available water quality data.

An annual workshop hosted at Penn State’s University Park campus gives people a chance to come together, learn about the latest water quality research and data, and talk about ways to move forward together.

“I don’t believe that anyone else was able to bring such a diverse group of people together to discuss this extremely complex problem from their unique perspectives, with a common goal to

jointly advance the understanding of this problem and rationally discuss possible ways forward,” noted Radisav Vidic, the William Kepler Whiteford Professor and Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Pitt and a Shale Network member.

A shared interest in gathering, discussing and improving water quality data among diverse groups can lead to productive conversations that data alone cannot address, the scientists reported in “Engaging over data on fracking and water quality,” published in the journal Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.aan6520).

“We’ve been trying to figure out how to pull people together and look at numbers to understand impacts,” said Susan Brantley, Distinguished Professor of Geosciences and Director of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Penn State. “That can lead to better decisions.

“That’s really what Shale Network is all about,” said Dr. Brantley, who is lead investigator of the group. “We want to help everyone understand what the numbers – in this case water chemistry numbers – mean related to shale gas development.”

For the past six years, Shale Network researchers have collected and published water quality data online. Their database contains more than a million pieces of data from 28,000 locations across the state, some never available before. The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science (CUAHSI) hosts the public database with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

“We have all these data points that are starting to be at our fingertips, and we have computational tools to work with the data,” Dr. Brantley said.

“Yet, the numbers don’t mean anything unless

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Mining the Data Pitt leads latest five-year PA DEP report on effects and remediation of underground coal mining subsidence

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ituminous coal resources were first mined underground in Pennsylvania along the slopes of Mount Washington, just across from downtown Pittsburgh as early as the 1760s. At this time, some 35 operations still mine coal with the room-and-pillar and longwall mining methods. Through the intervening 250 years, coal mining has had an important role in the development of the region. Unfortunately, protection of the environment from the adverse effects of mining evolved slowly and didn’t rise to today’s standards until 1977 with the passage of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. In Pennsylvania, the Federal legislation was further expanded with the passage of Act 54 in 1994. This legislation allows coal companies to subside the surface as long as their planned subsidence is identified and approved within the state’s permitting process. Mining permits of this type require coal companies to identify features (water supplies, structures, streams, ponds, and wetlands) that could be impacted by subsidence; monitor the impacts to these features; and compensate the land owners or government for damages to these features.

Under the Act 54 amendments, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is required to assess the implementation of new repair and compensation provisions every five years. Since 2009 the University of Pittsburgh has helped to mine the data that shapes how the Commonwealth conducts this assessment and responds to the concerns of individuals and industry.

Funded by DEP and the U.S. Department of the Interior, an interdisciplinary team of researchers led by Pitt has begun the Fifth Act 54 Five-year

Report. The $794,205 contract includes a comprehensive review of the built and natural environments impacted by long-wall, room-andpillar, and retreat mining methods from August 21, 2013 – August 20, 2018.

The project’s Principal Investigator – Daniel Bain, assistant professor of geology and environmental engineering – leads a team of ten comprised of professors, post-docs, graduate students, and undergraduate researchers. Two members from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering are Anthony Iannacchione, associate professor, and Taylor Dacanal, graduate research assistant. Investigators from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History are Stephen Tonsor, director of science and research, and John Wenzel, director of the museum’s Powdermill Nature Center, and Powdermill’s aquatic entomologist Andrea Kautz.

“Thanks to this regular review, the DEP has adjusted assessment focus to evolve from basic structures to water, then streams, then wetlands, taking a deeper look at the watershed as a whole,” Dr. Bain said. “The challenge is collecting sometimes limited data from various resources, as

well as new types of data such as the interaction between groundwater and streams. This process is an evolving territory for everyone involved, from the Commonwealth and mining companies to public interest groups and NGOs, but it is vital research that has a tremendous impact on environmental remediation and restoration.”

The fifth report, due August 20, 2019, will include sections on impacts to structures, water supplies, groundwater, streams, wetlands, and a list of recommendations presented to the Governor, General Assembly and Citizens Advisory Council, as well as through public hearings in Harrisburg and California, Pa. “For this study we’re a combination of auditors and researchers,” Dr. Iannacchione explained.

“But since the first assessment was completed in 1999, the process has not only given industry, government and non-government organizations a greater look at the impact of underground mining, but helped the Commonwealth better identify and address problems, and improve the DEP process as a whole.”

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Students Improve Infrastructure in Panamanian Village

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ost Americans expect rooms to brighten with the flick of a switch and clean water to be available at the turn of a faucet, almost without a thought.

water pressure, and a pedestrian bridge was built for easier travel for the monthly journey by community members to the village’s water storage facility.

However, many communities worldwide view these as more than simple amenities; to them, they are nearly impossible to obtain.

“The project was a true engineering challenge and provided a great learning opportunity for all the students,” said Daniel Budny, associate professor of environmental engineering and the club’s academic adviser.

That’s where innovative engineering comes into play – with the help of University of Pittsburgh students. The Pitt Humanities, Engineering and Design Club – or Pitt HEAD Club for short – returned to Panama to continue their work with the Emberá, an indigenous community in Panama’s Chagres National Park, where such amenities are scarce to nonexistent.

In October 2017, the team installed about 30 solar panels for the community of 80 people, which will power a freezer to store the community’s freshly caught fish. In addition, new shower heads were installed in some homes to increase

Dr. Budny accompanied the six-student team in October to help with building the amenities, something he has been doing since the club’s inception in 2012.

“Without him (Budny), nothing would have happened,” said team member and senior civil engineering student Nicholas McGinley. “He really pushed us to be successful and was blunt. He said we would have to get down there and we would have to improvise upon what we planned.”

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The club has been visiting Panama and other locations each semester for the past five years, helping to improve people’s lives by designing and installing such amenities as water storage tanks, water lines, community centers and garbage storage facilities, among others.

The recent mission to the Emberá was the team’s most arduous. The students had to navigate the Chagres River by canoe about 20 minutes round trip each day to reach the community. The team didn’t have cell phone or wifi access and worked in temperatures in the high 80s and low 90s with high humidity.

While language barrier issues were also present, a translator was brought with the team to help communicate with the Emberá villagers.

“I had never been in a rainforest before this, but you’re just sliding around on mud and you have a 50-pound bag of sand or a 25-foot beam on your shoulder,” said Robbie Kountz, a team member and senior civil and environmental engineering student. “Nothing really too dangerous though.

And the people were amazing and happy to see all this coming together.”

Along with that, two of the larger solar panels were damaged during shipping. They had to be replaced as a result, but that did not deter the team from completing its mission. Within a few hours of the chest freezer installation, Emberá

community members began storing that day’s fresh catch of corvina, a highly prized fish.

“It’s really on-the-fly thinking at all times,” said Kountz. “You just can’t stop in your tracks. You have to keep improvising your plans.”

While the Pitt HEAD Club funds its own missions and receives some support from local supply companies, it received help this year through a donation from John Swanson, the Swanson School’s namesake.

“It was definitely great to know that the guy who this school is named after is a big supporter of what we do,” said McGinley. “It meant a lot.”

About 30 bags were packed with batteries and tools needed to complete the mission. The solar panels and the mounts used to place them were designed by mechanical engineering students who did not fly down with the team.

For their return to the village in June, the team members are working on getting more funding for a filtration system to improve the water quality, based on samples taken during this mission.

Dr. Budny said while the mission serves to improve people’s lives in other parts of the world, it also serves to teach the students and others that engineering and other sciences can solve issues outside the lab.

“Our work in many cases solves a lot of issues,” he said. “It shows students the humanitarian and social impact that engineering has on society.”

The missions also give students a cultural experience. For some, this was their first time visiting Panama.

“It was interesting seeing the different ways people lived,” said team member and senior civil engineering student Stephen Anderjack, one such first-time visitor. “It was really hot and humid, but it was a lot of fun.”

Author: Amerigo Allegretto. Originally posted March 16, 2018 in Pittwire. Reprinted with permission.

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Discovering “Virtual” Resources in the National Food System

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oes producing one ton of rice consume more water in Arkansas or California? Is it more sustainable for Texas to import oranges from Florida or grow its own? Will switching to water efficient irrigation pumps reduce both water and energy footprint of food production?

To better integrate sustainability across multiple production systems, the National Science Foundation awarded two professors from the Swanson School of Engineering a $305,764 grant for their research into the interconnectivity of U.S. food, energy, and water resources. The research will focus on modeling the complex network of resources in the United States and strategies for optimizing sustainability in resource production and consumption with a focus on food, energy, and water systems.

“People tend to see food, energy, and water as individual diodes on a larger network, when they are more like a mesh of connections. This research is asking how you can model the nexus of these complex systems,” said Vikas Khanna, associate professor and principal investigator of the study.

The study, “Modeling and Optimization of Sustainable and ResilienT FEW (MOST FEW) Networks” will use publicly available data from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the Department of Agriculture, and related organizations to examine the environmental sustainability of U.S. national food system with an emphasis on interstate trade.

The researchers in particular will focus on identifying networks of “virtual resources.”

“Virtual resources are those consumed in a process but not intended to be directly used in the exchange itself,” Dr. Khanna explained. “For example, a large amount of water is consumed across the entire supply chain of corn. A singular focus on optimizing corn production could come at the expense of high water consumption or increased fertilizer use, or result in some other negative consequence if relationships within the system aren’t better understood.”

Joining Dr. Khanna on the study as co-principal investigator is Oleg Prokopyev, professor of industrial engineering, who specializes in operations research and develops tools and algorithms for describing complex, mathematical relationships in networks. Their collaboration began after Dr. Khanna used similar techniques and principles

Credit: Swanson School of Engineering/Nemi Vora

Graphic shows a visualization of energy embodied in irrigation from U.S. domestic food transfers. Embodied energy accounts for the total amount of energy consumed by a process. The network represents 1719 interstate transfers amounting to 274 billion megajoules of embodied energy, or roughly the amount of energy in 45 million barrels of oil.

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to model the London public transit system. Dr. Prokopyev recognized their common research interests, and the two decided to collaborate on the current project.

Dr. Prokopyev said, “When looking at multiple objectives, most often efficiency with one thing will come at the expense of another. These are problems that don’t really have easy solutions, but there are mathematical ways to describe the processes and help people visualize how their decisions impact the network.”

During the grant period, the researchers hope to identify “hot spots” for improvement opportunities and provide a range of solutions that minimize

environmental impact and maximize the efficiency of resource production and consumption.

“When your focus is sustainability, you always have a research application in mind,” Dr. Khanna said. “We face real life problems every day that require tradeoffs like quality for price or personal preference for availability. In the same way consumers can make better decision by being more informed, modeling the food, energy, and water networks will help to inform better decision making about our national resource policies by government, industry, utilities, and more.”

Using Social Media Math to Link U.S. Trade Networks

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eveloping a PhD thesis is a time-consuming process that involves committees, defenses, rewrites, and dissertations. But one University of Pittsburgh student was able to distill hers into a three-minute pitch – and was awarded for her presentation. Nemi Vora, a graduate student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was one of two runner-up winners at the University of Pittsburgh’s Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition earlier this month.

Between 2012 and 2016, California faced one of its most severe droughts. Farmers risked losing their crops unless they tapped into the only other water source: groundwater. However, pumping water out of the ground requires electricity, and power plants require water for cooling. It didn’t take long before the largest electricity supply company in Southern California had to shut down two of its nuclear reactors. The drought set into

motion a chain reaction threatening the region’s energy, water, and food.

based on Vora’s research, which was highlighted on the issue’s cover.

“We know these resources are connected. Stress in one may affect the other two, so we need to manage them together,” Vora saud. “Currently, our policies are not designed to look at the whole picture. This is where my work comes in.”

Just as information travels through social media networks, U.S. natural resources travel through complex trade networks. Instead of sharing ideas, photos, and events, these networks share food, water, and energy. Government reports about these resources rarely go viral, but the complex statistical equations used to hone social media experiences can also help explain the interconnectivity of resources.

Vora studies how the same algorithms that power social media can be applied to government survey data about food, water, energy, and other essential resources. She is preparing her thesis titled “A systems-level framework for understanding sustainability and resilience of the U.S. Food-Energy-Water Nexus” under the advisory of Associate Professor Vikas Khanna. Last year, the American Chemical Society journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering published a paper (DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.6b02122)

“We trade a lot of food in the United States, and the result is a chaotic network,” Vora explained. “To make sense out of it I use social network analysis, which is the same math used by social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. We find some interesting insights that would be much harder to piece together with traditional strategies.”

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Data-driven Dialogue... continued from page 10 you are working together. Not just with geologists or geochemists, but people who live in the area the data comes from. You need that collaboration to understand what the numbers mean. Local community members teach us about their landscapes and their needs.”

Dr. Brantley said people know what is happening in their backyards. Watershed groups near Pittsburgh, for instance, know to look out for discharge from old coalmines, which wouldn’t be a factor in other parts of the state.

The database has proven useful, but even more important has been the process of building it, the researchers said in the paper. Collaborations between diverse stakeholders have helped forge a social network with diverse perspectives and concerns.

“We may have developed a blueprint for how to engage different stakeholders and develop a commonality of purpose even in something as controversial and complicated as unconventional gas extraction,” Dr. Vidic said. “Perhaps this blueprint can be applied for the same problem elsewhere in the world or for other complex problems.”

Shale Network researchers act as honest brokers in discussions like those that take place at the group’s annual workshops.

“We are not trying to prove fracking is bad,” Dr. Brantley said. “We are not trying to prove water quality is perfect. We are trying to look at what the water chemistry looks like in the areas where fracking is occurring and help all kinds of people talk about that together.”

Co-authors include Kathryn Brasier, associate professor of rural sociology, Dave Yoxtheimer, EESI research assistant, and Tao Wen, a post-doctoral scholar, all at Penn State; Candie Wilderman, professor emerita at Dickinson College; and Jonathan Pollack, CUAHSI program manager.

Founded in 2010 with NSF funding, the Shale Network is a collaborative effort between Penn State, the University of Pittsburgh, Dickinson College and CUAHSI to collect and analyze data on water quality in the Marcellus Shale drilling region.

Author: Matt Carroll, Science Writer, Penn State Earth and Environmental Systems Institute. Reprinted with permission.

Faculty and Student Awards and Recognition Faculty Melissa Bilec, Swanson School Faculty Diversity Award; graduated from the ELATE at Drexel® program Andrew Bunger, promoted to Associate Professor with tenure Kent Harries, promoted to Professor Carla Ng and John Sebastian, completed the University of Pittsburgh Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Faculty Pathway Piervincenzo Rizzo, promoted to Professor David Sanchez, E2 Energy to Educate award from Constellation, an Excelon company; and recipient of the University of Pittsburgh Faculty Sustainability Award

Undergraduate Aquaponics Project: Grand Prize, 10th Annual Ford College Community Challenge (Advisor: Leanne Gilbertson)

ASCE University of Pittsburgh Chapter: Distinguished Chapter Award for Region 2 (Advisor: Anthony Iannacchione) Constructors Association of Western Pennsylvania (CAWP) 2018 Student Estimating Competition • 2nd Place: Benedum Builders (Sam Byrns, Michael Donato, Mason Unger, Katey Paraskiewicz, and Hanna Rugh) • 3rd Place: Panther Estimators (Alexa Silverman, Benjamin Kottler, Matthew Lane, Nathan Irwin, and Dominic Matarazzo) Master Builders’ Association of Western Pennsylvania, Inc. and Construction Advancement Program (CAP) • Alexander Citerone, 1st Place • Nicole Bell and Kate Lundy, 2nd Place Tie Abraham Charles Cullom, National Science Foundation Undergraduate Fellowship

Charles Donnelly, ASCE Pittsburgh Section American Bridge Leadership Award Edwin Hasis, 2017 Peter J. Mascaro Fellow in Construction Management

Graduate Nathalia de Carvalho, PPG Graduate Research Fellowship Lisa Stabryla, PPG Travel Award Sakineh Tavakkoli, First Place Poster Prize at the ASCE Regional Conference on Sustainability, Pittsburgh Nemi Vora, Runner Up, University of Pittsburgh Three Minute Thesis Competition

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BUILDING A REPUTATION Pitt ASCE Student Chapter Wins Third Distinguished Chapter Award in Three Years

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ivil and environmental engineering students from the University of Pittsburgh Student Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) have sustained their reputation for another year as the most outstanding chapter in Region 2 of the professional society. The chapter has won the award for the past three years.

“Not only did the club do an excellent job of enhancing civil engineering students’ experiences at Pitt, but they also grew by about 20 percent, furthering their impact now more than ever,” says Anthony Iannacchione, associate professor and faculty advisor to the student chapter.

The Pitt ASCE student chapter includes about 170 members from the undergraduate civil and environmental engineering program at Pitt. They interact regularly with other student and professional chapters from ASCE Region 2, which includes Washington, DC, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and parts of northern Virginia. Judges select the regional winner of the Distinguished Chapter Award based primarily on activities recorded in the Student Chapter’s Annual Report.

“Of all the challenges and obstacles we overcame this year, the greatest was the student-run career fair for civil engineering undergraduates,” says Chaz Donnelly, 2017-18 president of Pitt ASCE. “We brought representatives from 22 civil engineering companies to the campus so students could meet them and learn about internships and employment opportunities.”

In 2017, the Pitt chapter also hosted the Region 2 student assembly, which included seven universities, five speakers, and a “Bridges of Pittsburgh”

Dinner Cruise. The boat tour featured Pitt Professor John Oyler explaining the history of the surrounding bridges as the boat traveled under them along the city’s three rivers.

The chapter members logged an impressive amount of hours doing volunteer work throughout the year on projects such as making holiday cards to send to hospitals throughout the region, the Toys for Tots charity toy drive, and joining more than 3,000 Pitt students to volunteer throughout Pittsburgh during Pitt Make a Difference Day. At the Middle School Engineering Day, members showed local middle school students how to build balsa wood bridges and demonstrated how forces work. They also had a newspaper tower competition and brought samples of concrete and steel to provide students with a hands-on way of learning about different kinds of building materials.

Last year, the chapter also received awards for their performance at the Ohio Valley Student Conference hosted by The Ohio State University. The competition brought together civil engineering students from 13 universities throughout Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Pitt ASCE won first place overall in the surveying and environmental review paper categories.

Pitt ASCE Student Board Members with ASCE President-elect Robin Kemper at the Region 2 Assembly hosted by Pitt ASCE. Pictured from left are Connor Bassett, Andrew Westpy, Chaz Donnelly, Robin Kemper, Casey Cloonan, Jeff Smith, Matt Paradise, and Todd Allen-Gifford

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CHAZ DONNELLY Wins American Bridge Leadership Award

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he American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Pittsburgh Section presented senior civil engineering student Charles (Chaz) Donnelly with the 2017-18 American Bridge Leadership Award, recognizing his impact on the Pittsburgh Section and demonstrated leadership qualities in the civil engineering profession.

“This is a highly competitive award open to all civil engineering students in the area covered by the Pittsburgh Section. Chaz is currently the president of our ASCE Student Chapter and, by all accounts, has been an outstanding leader,” said Anthony Iannacchione, associate professor and faculty advisor to the ASCE Student Chapter.

As chapter president, Donnelly has led the approximately 170 students since fall 2017. He expanded the chapter’s fundraising efforts and led

the organization of the University of Pittsburgh’s Region 2 Assembly for ASCE members throughout Washington, D.C., parts of northern Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania on November 4, 2017.

Donnelly is scheduled to graduate in December 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and concentration in geotechnical engineering.

He has had three co-op rotations with Massaro Construction Group, is Vice President of the Pitt Space Ex/Astronomy Club, and has previously served as business manager for the American Society of Highway Engineers student chapter, and membership chair, steel bridge captain, and technical paper captain for the Ohio Valley Student Conference.

U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering Gerald Holder announced Melissa Bilec, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and deputy director of the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, as the recipient of the 2017-18 Swanson School of Engineering Faculty Diversity Award.

“Melissa’s continued accomplishments are extremely important in helping us reach our diversity goals and national prominence in this area,” wrote Dean Holder, in the award letter.

He added that Dr. Bilec was chosen to receive the award for creating a positive and inclusive academic environment, participation in diversity related initiatives, and diversity enrichment within the community.

The Faculty Diversity Award Committee specifically cited Dr. Bilec’s achievements as: • Commitment to community engagement and building relationships with underserved communities where engineering skills and student projects can better the lives of others;

• leadership and mentorship for women in STEM, as co-advisor of PittSWE, the Society of Women Engineers, and by incorporating strategic plans to support diversity efforts in goals as part of the ELATE program; • recognized excellence in mentorship, at the graduate and postdoctoral levels, including the 2016 Outstanding Mentor Award from the University of Pittsburgh Postdoctoral Association; • and service to the Swanson School in the recruitment and retention of underrepresented students through campus visits and conference participation.

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Gateway Engineers Along with Past President Establish Funds to Help Women Engineering Students at Pitt

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lthough the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a greater need for engineers over the next ten years, data show that women who earn an engineering degree are less likely to work in the engineering profession.1 At the same time, the percentage of women with engineering degrees has remained flat for more than a decade.2 However, a recent gift to the Swanson School of Engineering from one of Pittsburgh’s most successful woman engineers hopes to attract more women to the profession and help to build the professional networks needed to continue in the profession.

Ruthann L. Omer, P.E. earned her bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Pitt in 1983, was the first female municipal engineering in Allegheny County, and recently retired as President of Gateway Engineers. She and Gateway Engineers established two funds at the Swanson School to help the next generation of engineers succeed at the University and beyond.

The Omer Scholarship Fund will support undergraduate tuition and other educational expenses, and will also support furthering the diversity of the undergraduate student body in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The Omer Family Engineering Legacy Fund established by Gateway Engineers will enhance student success by supporting the School’s award-winning chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE).

Gateway Engineers’ CEO, Jason Jesso, applauded the mission of SWE. “SWE offers engineering students with opportunities to network, obtain leadership training, earn scholarships and advance their careers,” Mr. Jesso said.

“We’re incredibly thankful for Gateway Engineers and Ruthann’s commitment to engineering education and student success,” noted Gerald D. Jason Jesso (left) with Ruthann Omer Holder, past U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering. “They are well respected by their engineering peers in the region and are an example of the success our women engineering students can achieve in the profession.”

The Omer Family Engineering Legacy Fund will enable Pitt SWE members to attend the national conference, beginning with WE18 in Minneapolis, October 18-20, 2018.

1 Corbett, C., & Hill, C. (2015). Solving the Equation: The Variables for Women’s Success in Engineering and Computing. Washington, DC: American Association of University Women.

2 Yoder, B. L. (2017). Engineering by the numbers. American Society for Engineering Education.

New Faculty Sarah Haig, Assistant Professor Dr. Haig’s research combines environmental microbiology, environmental chemistry, and public health to improve water quality with a focus on drinking water systems. More specifically, the Haig research group aims to develop and advance our understanding of the drinking water microbiome; how to manipulate it to provide safer water in a more energy-efficient way, and understand its role in human health.

Dr. Haig completed her PhD, “Characterizing the Functional Microbial Ecology of Slow Sand Filters Through Environmental Genomics” in September 2014 at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. She was also a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (October 2014 – July 2018) at the University of Michigan, in the groups of Lutgarde Raskin (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering) and John LiPuma (Department of Pediatrics), where she focused on linking the drinking water microbiome to human health.

Dr. Haig has published several papers in leading journals in the fields of environmental engineering and microbiology and has given numerous presentations at national and international conferences. She has received honors and awards for her research including Society for General Microbiology and IWA Young Water Professional prizes, a Lord Kelvin Adam Smith PhD scholarship, a Microbiology of the Built Environment Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and a Dow Sustainability Fellowship.

Swanson School of Engineering Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering 742 Benedum Hall 3700 O’Hara Street Pittsburgh PA 15261

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Intercollegiate Collaboration

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ssistant Professor Andrew Bunger is part of an award from the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to projects that address systemic risk in offshore oil and gas operations. Principal investigators will be Wesley Williams and Mileva Radonjic, faculty at the LSU Craft & Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering, who received more than $7.5 million of the total $10.8 million awarded.

Williams, a professional in residence, received $4,910,000 for his project, “Experiments on Multiphase Flow of Live Muds in a Full-Scale Wellbore with Distributed Sensing for Kick and Gas-in-Riser Detection/Mitigation.” The research is being conducted in cooperation with Texas A&M University and Weatherford. Radonjic, an associate professor, received $2,614,000 for her project, “Mitigating Risks to Hydrocarbon Release through Integrative Advanced Materials for Wellbore Plugging and Remediation.” In addition to Dr. Bunger, the work is being conducted in cooperation with LSU Petroleum Engineering Assistant Professor Ipsita Gupta, Raissa Feron from the University of Texas at Austin and Malin Torsater from SINTEF, a research company in Norway.

The $300,000 award to Pitt will support a PhD student for three years in order to test and model performance of novel wellbore plugging materials under simulated subsurface conditions.

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