2019 Swanson School Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Newsletter

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

CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING FALL 2019

Using Nature to Help Protect Cities from Extreme Weather

Toward Mitigating PFAS Carla Ng Seeks to Remove These Substances from the Environment

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er- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) are man-made chemicals used in a variety of industries, but do not naturally break down in the environment or human body. Carla Ng, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, received a five-year, $500,000 National Science Foundation CAREER award to further investigate the impacts of these chemicals and potential methods to remove them from the environment.

Because of their oil- and water-repellent properties, PFAS are used in many consumer products, industrial processes, and firefighting foams, but their manufacturing and widespread use has contributed to their undesired release into the environment. According to Dr. Ng, more than 4,000 different kinds of PFAS may have been produced for decades, yet detailed toxicity data do not exist.

“One of the pressing concerns with PFAS is adverse effects on human health,” said Dr. Ng. “Conventional drinking water treatment is not effective at removing most PFAS from water, so they can build up in the bodies of humans and wildlife, disrupt normal development, and impair the immune system. Some PFAS have been associated with increases in kidney and testicular cancers in humans.”

Dr. Ng’s CAREER award will address these issues through a complementary approach using predictive modeling and experiments.

“We will use molecular and organism-scale models to conduct large-scale predictive screening of PFAS hazards,” said Dr. Ng. “With the information from our predictive continued on page 3 > > >

Pitt and Northwestern Study Nature-Based Strategies to Prevent Urban Flooding

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s the planet warms, communities will continue to face the sometimes-crippling aftermath of flooding and extreme weather events.

Failing infrastructure exacerbates the problem and leaves engineers in search of solutions that are sustainable and future-proof.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded the University of Pittsburgh and Northwestern University $2 million to study nature-based strategies that can mitigate urban flooding and give under-resourced communities the ability to prepare for, recover from, and adapt to extreme weather events. “Catalyzing Resilient Urban Infrastructure Systems: Integrating the Natural & Built Environments,” is part of the NSF’s Leading Engineering for America’s Prosperity, Health and Infrastructure (LEAP HI) program.

Carla Ng, PhD, assistant professor, and Murat Akcakaya, PhD, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, will work with principal investigator Kimberly Gray, PhD, the Kay Davis Professor and Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern University, continued on page 9 > > >

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Let’s Clear the Air

New Paper Details Outcomes from Long-Term Environmental Justice Partnership in East End

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or the past 40 years, research has shown that people of color, low-income communities and ethnic minorities suffer the effects of environmental contamination more than other communities.1 The Flint, Mich., water crisis and the Dakota Pipeline protests serve as national examples of environmental injustices, but similar issues affect communities across the country.

New research from the University of Pittsburgh’s Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, in partnership with the Kingsley Association and funded by the Heinz Endowments examined the impact that bottom-up, community-level initiatives have in addressing environmental justice issues. They found that the best way to address a community’s environmental injustices is to meet them where they are, integrating into the community and building trust over a long-term partnership.

Pittsburgh has struggled with air quality since its early industrial days, and the effects of environmental pollution on health are wellknown. Residents are at twice the cancer risk of surrounding counties, and disadvantaged communities see the worst of it. The East End of Pittsburgh is among the city’s most underserved neighborhoods and struggles with crumbling infrastructure, community disinvestment, and high traffic density. These factors contribute to the poor air quality affecting health and wellness, which is what the Environmental Justice Community Action Matrix (EJCAM) is designed to address.

“When your house needs repairs, it can’t effectively keep the outdoor air out. Since Americans spend nearly 90 percent of their time indoors, the concentration of pollution inside the house could be a significant contributor to poor health,” says Melissa Bilec, PhD, associate

professor and the Roberta A. Luxbacher Faculty Fellow. “I visited one community member’s home and noticed that she was using an oxygen tank, and it struck me just how much these environmental issues are impacting people’s health inside their own homes.”

Dr. Bilec and her team, with PhD student Harold Rickenbacker as a lead, partnered with the Kingsley Association, a community organization in Larimer. EJCAM, their most recent collaboration, culminated in in-house air quality testing that Dr. Bilec says wouldn’t have been possible without the trust that their partnership built, especially Dr. Rickenbacker’s commitment and time spent in working with the community.

EJCAM created Community Action Teams (CATs), which trained community members to become leaders who would train others and advocate continued on page 11 > > >

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Greetings from the Chair Dear friends, colleagues, and alumni, Once again it is my pleasure to share some of the outstanding news from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. We have enjoyed an exceptional year of research and student success, which continue to build upon our 152-year history of civil engineering excellence.

First, I am incredibly proud of Carla Ng, who received a coveted NSF CAREER award to further study the impact and removal of PFAS from the environment.

Carla was also part of the record-tying cohort of CAREER award winners this past year at the Swanson School – five winners overall.

Indeed, our faculty have been very productive in securing grants and publishing, but those are means to a greater end. You’ll read about the impact that Melissa Bilec and recent PhD graduate, Harold Rickenbacker, have had on Pittsburgh’s disadvantaged neighborhoods, as well as Sarah Haig’s partnership with the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority to study that agency’s efforts to reduce lead in drinking water. Likewise, Vikas Khanna and I are collaborating to develop a novel method to treat shale gas wastewater, a byproduct of the expanding hydrofracturing industry in Pennsylvania.

I am excited to welcome Amir Alavi, previously from the University of Missouri, and Aleksandar Stevanovic, from Florida Atlantic University, as our newest faculty. Both bring diverse infrastructure experience to our department and will be a great addition to our burgeoning IRISE consortium.

Most importantly, however, is the impact that our faculty are having on our students and their growth as civil and environmental engineers. Harold, who I previously mentioned, secured a new position at the Environmental Defense

Toward Mitigating PFAS

Fund in Washington, DC, before even defending his dissertation. Kareem Rabbat is one of our outstanding seniors and has built his own startup which uses cargo containers as an aquaponics farms nourished by local food waste. And our dynamic ASCE chapter won first place overall at the highly competitive Ohio Valley Student Competition.

Lastly, it is with sadness that we mark the passing of Karl Lewis, whose tenure as a civil engineering professor was eclipsed by his role as a mentor, change-agent and creator of one of the Swanson School’s most successful programs supporting underrepresented minority students. Even after retirement he was a frequent sight at engineering events and gatherings. His genial smile and larger-than-life persona will truly be missed.

On behalf of our faculty, staff and students, thank you for your continued support of and engagement with our Department. Please accept my best wishes for a productive and exciting new academic year.

Sincerely,

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

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models about the relationships between PFAS structure and their interaction with biological systems, we will design new bio-inspired sorbents to remove PFAS from water.

targeted way. She hopes that the knowledge gained during this five-year CAREER award will also help identify hazardous properties in future chemicals.

“Because we have so little information about potentially thousands of these substances, we cannot experimentally assess each one; the costs would simply be too great in time, testing, and resources,” continued Dr. Ng. “This is where models can be very powerful tools because they allow researchers to concurrently conduct virtual experiments on many chemicals. When these models are tied to targeted experiments, their predictions can be evaluated and the models improved to increase their accuracy and reliability.”

An important objective of this CAREER award is to engage middle and high school students in STEM research. To do so, Dr. Ng plans to elevate K-12 and undergraduate education through the use of collaborative model-building in a game-like environment.

Such models can also provide clues on how to remove them from the environment. Dr. Ng will employ the very characteristics that make PFAS so dangerous against them. By using her models to discover which biological molecules react strongly with PFAS, her group will be able to design a new class of selective sorbents that remove them from water in an efficient and

“NetLogo is a freely available and accessible model-building tool that can be equally powerful for cutting edge research or for students exploring new concepts in science and engineering while learning useful model-building and coding skills,” said Dr. Ng. “I hope to enhance systems-level thinking and self-confidence among students in STEM so that we can cultivate diverse cohorts of future STEM leaders.”

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Climate for Change” was the theme at this year’s Engineering Sustainability conference, hosted by the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation (MCSI) at the University of Pittsburgh with the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education & Research at Carnegie Mellon University. The conference dealt with something unique for a technical conference: It spent time talking about not only the “what” of sustainable innovations, but the “how.” How do you get people to change their perspective about sustainability? How do you create a climate where such changes can be successful?

“The built environment helps to sustain our economy and way of life, but at the cost of heavy resource use and waste generation,” says Gena Kovalcik, co-director of the MCSI. “Our aim at this conference is to share innovative ideas about everything from water collection and treatment systems to building materials and transportation grids, all while fostering the collaborative climate necessary to do this work well.”

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That sort of climate, one that creates a fertile ground for professional growth and new ideas, has always been a part of what makes this Engineering Sustainability Conference special, according to Kovalcik. Attendees past and present remark that this conference is one they return to again and again, noting its cross-disciplinary opportunities and welcoming atmosphere.

The 2019 conference, April 7-9 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, was even familyfriendly, welcoming attendee’s children and offering private spaces for nursing mothers.

Since 2005, the Engineering Sustainability Conference has been an approachable place for young engineers to explore diverse career paths and carve a space for discovery and community in the intersection of engineering and sustainability, academia and industry. This year, attendees explored topics such as the regenerative built environment, sustainable mobility, circular economy, engineering sustainability learning and engagement, and behavioral science for sustainability – a new feature at the conference.

Plenary speakers were Suzanne Shelton, president and CEO of the Shelton Group (a marketing communications agency focused on energy and the environment), and Cyrus Wadia, former vice president of Sustainable Business & Innovation at NIKE, Inc. “One of the reasons it’s challenging to work at the intersection of disciplines is because you still need an academic community. This conference provides that community, and has grown it Cyrus Wadia, PhD, former Vice President, Sustainable Business & Innovation at NIKE, Inc., presenting the closing keynote.

over time,” says Leidy Klotz, PhD, Copenhaver Family Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Systems and Environment at the University of Virginia, who began attending the conference in 2007. “Now, budding scholars can refer to themselves as ‘Sustainability Engineers,’ and others recognize that as a legitimate pursuit.

Creating that community in such a relatively short time is a tremendous accomplishment for a conference!”

David Dzombak, PhD, Hamerschlag University Professor and head of the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at Carnegie Mellon University, has been a strong partner from the beginning.

“We at Carnegie Mellon are grateful for the continuing partnership of our Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research with MCSI in organizing the conference, which brings to Pittsburgh engineers and scientists from across North America,” says Dr. Dzombak. “The conference has benefitted multiple generations of students from Carnegie Mellon, Pitt, and numerous other institutions, helping them to advance sustainability in their careers.”

For Freddy Paige, PhD, the conference he attended in his second year of graduate school confirmed his ambition to pursue a doctoral degree. Today, Dr. Paige is assistant professor in the Charles E. Via Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech and assistant director of the Virginia Center for Housing Research.

“This conference was the first in which I felt like I belonged in the rooms I was sitting in. Being there in 2015, I gained confidence and motivation toward sharing the knowledge that would improve society,” recalls Dr. Paige. “I also got a chance to see professors in a different light. While some ideas were challenged in traditional engineering format, most of the conversation I engaged in had a modern vibe that allowed for a critical conversation with a much more inviting tone.” continued on page 11 > > >

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Distilling a Solution for Fracking Wastewater More than $5 million in DOE funding helps Pitt Engineering pilot a new, sustainable method of treating hydrofracturing wastewater

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esearch led by the Swanson School of Engineering may not only greatly reduce the amount of fresh water used in the multi-billion-dollar hydrofracturing industry, but also leverage the waste heat available at drilling sites and natural gas compressor stations to safely treat shale gas wastewater (SGWW) for reuse.

As part of “Deploying Intensified, Automated, Mobile, Operable, and Novel Designs (DIAMOND) for Treating Shale Gas Wastewater,” a $5.3 million award from the Department of Energy (DOE) RAPID Manufacturing Institute, the Pitt team was awarded $1.76 million to conduct pilot testing of membrane distillation technology in the Marcellus and Utica Shale.

Collaborators include Texas A&M University, University of Texas at Austin and U.S. Clean Water Technology, while industry partners are Pittsburghbased Aquatech International, Fort Worth’s Range Resources, Boston’s Gradiant Corporation, and Glen Allen, Va.’s Markel Corporation. Additionally, a $0.7 million DOE award to Gas Technology Institute (GTI) will support efforts by the Pitt team ($0.445 million) to expand this study to the Permian Basin of West Texas.

Leading the research is Radisav Vidic, the William Kepler Whiteford Professor and Department Chair at Pitt, with co-PI and Associate Professor Vikas Khanna.

“Hydrofracturing, originally developed to drill for oil deposits deep within rock formations, has in

the past decade created a new energy boom in the U.S. thanks to its use in natural gas extraction, especially in Pennsylvania and Texas,” Dr. Vidic explained. “However, the vast amounts of water needed to fracture or “frack” the rock formations and extract the fossil fuels wastes a valuable resource and results in wastewater contaminated with various salts and metals. This water is either shipped offsite for disposal, or is reused as a fracking fluid at a new well.”

One key element of the DIAMOND mobile treatment is membrane distillation technology, which has not been practical in the past because of high energy intensity and cost.

“We have been working to adapt this technology to SGWW for more than five years and have obtained excellent results in the laboratory using real wastewater to produce very high-quality finished water. Membrane distillation requires heating the feed wastewater, which is extremely expensive,” said Dr. Vidic. “However, the unconventional oil and gas industry generates a great amount of waste heat during compression or flaring of excess gas. Instead of losing this heat to the atmosphere, we can use it to power the membrane distillation on site making the process economically very promising.”

“A unique aspect of this project is a systems-level integration of waste heat sources with SGWW generation locations to identify and exploit continued on page 14 > > >

Pictured above from left with the DIAMOND membrane distillation technology are Dr. Vidic, post-doc Yoshihiko Inagaki, Dr. Khanna, and graduate student researcher Zhewei Zhang

Other research investigators include: Texas A&M University Mahmoud M. El-Halwagi, McFerrin Professor of Chemical Engineering and Managing Director of the Texas A&M Gas and Fuels Research Center Lucy Mar Camacho, Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering Joseph Kwon, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering Debalina Sengupta, Associate Director of the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station Gas and Fuels Research Center University of Texas at Austin Joan F. Brennecke, Cockrell Chair in Engineering Benny D. Freeman, Richard B. Curran Centennial Chair in Engineering Mark A. Stadtherr, Research Professor US Clean Water Technology Kurt Swogger, CEO Phil Carlberg, Chief Scientist

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2018-2019 PhDs Conferred December 2018 (Fall) Kevin Alland, Analyzing Falling Weight Deflectometer Data on Curled and Warped Concrete Slabs. (Advisor: Julie Vandenbossche) Omkar Lokare, Direct Contact Membrane Distillation for Desalination of High Salinity Brines: Fundamentals and Application. (Advisor: Radisav Vidic) Amir Nasrollahi, On the Application of Highly Nonlinear Solitary Waves for Nondestructive Evaluation. (Advisor: Piervincenzo Rizzo) Shen Tian, Evaluating Human Health Impacts of Products from a Life Cycle Perspective.

(Advisor: Melissa Bilec)

April 2019 (Spring) Gregory Banyay, Surrogate Modeling and Global Sensitivity Analysis Towards Efficient Simulation of Nuclear Reactor Stochastic Dynamics.

(Advisor: John Brigham) Vaclav Hasik, Advancing Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment. (Advisor: Melissa Bilec) Felipe Hernandez, Integrated High-Resolution Modeling for Operational Hydrologic Forecasting.

(Advisor: Xu Liang) Cesar Augusto Simon, One- and Two-Dimensional Coupling Modeling Approaches for Flood Simulations.

(Advisor: Jorge Abad) Robert Zupan, Jr., Computational Design and Evaluation of a Smart Material Morphing Building Surface Tile. (Advisor: John Brigham)

August 2019 (Summer) Harold Rickenbacker, Monitoring and Evaluation of Air Pollution in Residential and Commercial Buildings: Development and Implementation of Indoor Air Quality and Environmental Justice Frameworks for Communities and Energy Conservation Districts.

(Advisor: Melissa Bilec) German Villalba Fernandez De Castro, Understanding Hydrologic Processes and Correlations Using Modeling and Machine Learning with Remote Sensing and In-Situ Wireless Sensor Network Data.

(Advisor: Xu Liang) Nemi Vora, A Systems-Level Framework for Understanding Sustainability and Resilience of the U.S. Food-Energy-Water Nexus.

(Advisor: Vikas Khanna)

Fighting Corrosion in Pittsburgh’s Drinking System

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ike many cities across the country, Pittsburgh’s water system still uses some lead pipes, and over time, those can corrode, leaching lead into the drinking water system. To combat this, the Pittsburgh Water & Sewer Authority (PWSA) is introducing orthophosphate which will coat the insides of the lead pipes and help prevent the harmful corrosion.

PWSA produces approximately 70 million gallons of treated drinking water per day, which meets all EPA Safe Drinking Water Act standards. Orthophosphate is a food-grade additive that has been shown to be more effective than the soda ash and lime previously used for PWSA’s corrosion control.

Sarah Haig, PhD, an assistant professor with a secondary appointment in environmental and occupational health at the Graduate School of Public Health, and Emily Elliott, PhD, associate professor of Geology and Environmental Science in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences and Director of the Pittsburgh Water Collaboratory, will evaluate water samples provided by the PWSA. They will assess and monitor changes in the microbial ecology, water chemistry and nutrient availability in the water collected from pipes and urban streams connected to the system.

Their research is supported through a $175,000 National Science Foundation Rapid Response Research (RAPID) award.

Orthophosphate has been approved by the EPA and is used in drinking water systems across the world, but there is a need to monitor for any unexpected consequences that increased phosphorus load may have on the environment.

“Pittsburgh’s drinking water pipe system loses more than 25 million gallons per day due to leaks and other water discharges, so it’s important to understand what happens if orthophosphate enters the groundwater and surface water,” says Dr. Haig. “This grant will allow us to set a baseline and evaluate any changes that the added orthophosphate causes to the ecology of streams connected to the system.”

PWSA’s larger goal of replacing all lead pipes is underway but will take years to complete. In the meantime, the addition of orthophosphate is expected to reduce lead levels across the system.

“This project will help answer fundamental ecological questions about how leaking infrastructure can impact nutrient cycling and aquatic ecosystems in urban streams,” says Dr. Haig. “Not only will this project reveal the treatment’s immediate effects on Pittsburgh’s ecosystems, but it will also provide insights that will benefit other cities implementing this treatment.”

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IRISE Builds Upon Successful First Year

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he University of Pittsburgh’s Impactful Resilient Infrastructure Science & Engineering (IRISE) consortium was established in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering to address the challenges associated with aging transportation infrastructure. Its mission includes conducting research that will produce longer-lasting infrastructure, reduce the number of major disruption due to compromised infrastructure and therefore attain a better quality of life through a more durable and resilient transportation system.

IRISE is addressing these challenges with a collaborative effort among the public agencies that own and operate the infrastructure, the private companies that design and build it, and the academic community to develop creative solutions that can be implemented to meet the needs of its members. Current members include Allegheny County, Golden Triangle Construction, Michael Baker International, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission.

In its first year, IRISE initiated four projects: One evaluated issues related to corrosion in steel bridges to identify state-of-practice and novel methods for addressing corrosion prevention, mitigation and rehabilitation. A second investigated rapid repair methods for concrete infrastructure to increase durability and provide high flexural and bond strength and low shrinkage. The third provided an effective, localized design tool for pavement engineers in Pennsylvania that is compatible with the AASHTOWare Pavement ME design program. And the fourth, in partnership with Pitt’s Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, explored the use of microbes to provide self-healing properties that prevent water and chloride ingress through structural and/or cracking in reinforced concrete structures.

This year, two new projects are being initiated. One will establish a framework capable of leveraging emerging Structural Health Monitoring and Non-Destructive Evaluation techniques to provide improved performance assessment of bridges. The second will develop a strategy that can be implemented for the optimal timing of the opening of new concrete pavements to traffic.

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On August 29, IRISE hosted the Exploring Approaches to Managing Landslide Risks workshop. Over 100 individuals representing public, private and academic organizations participated in presentations on a variety of topics related to the proliferating landslide problem. These included historic landslides in the Pittsburgh area, extreme weather vulnerability, landslide mapping and data, mitigation actions, assessing risk and using risk-based analysis to make better decisions about targeting available funds on the highest risk situations. This latter topic was addressed by both the School’s Dean, James Martin II, and Dr. Vikas Khanna, associate professor.

Possible next steps include development of public education material and a best practices guide tailored to different landslide types and characteristics suitable for use by state and local government agencies.

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Senior Kareem Rabbat Supports Environment, Equity, and Economy in That Order

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f you talk to Kareem Rabbat (ENG ’20) for more than a few minutes, you will most likely hear the words “sustainability” and “equity” come out of his mouth in a very impassioned manner. Perhaps that’s why he was chosen to participate in this year’s Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation undergraduate summer research program.

“If the entire world develops like the first world did – with crazy emissions and not really taking into consideration environmental costs – that would be the tipping point for our planet,” said Kareem, who plans to join the Peace Corps upon graduation. “I want to be on the ground and help institute appropriate technology for developing countries so they can have access to clean water, electricity, roads, and other infrastructure without degrading the environment.”

After a short pause he adds, “And then after that, earn a PhD.”

Where Kareem is now in terms of life goals is very different than where he was just three years ago when he first came to Pitt.

“I was a business major and the only thing that really concerned me was making money. I wanted to have a yacht and a helicopter pad,” he says with only a touch of hyperbole. “I was in my first business class and realized that wasn’t really a fit for me.”

Kareem says he has always loved the environment and realized more recently it’s his passion. So he changed majors and began pursuing a degree in environmental engineering.

“Kareem is full of focused energy and curiosity.

He’s always asking about how things work and looking for solutions to problems he’s identified,” said Leanne Gilbertson, Assistant Professor, Swanson School of Engineering, who works closely with Kareem as an advisor on an aquaponics project. “He’s passionate about helping the environment through engineering.”

In May 2018, Kareem was awarded a scholarship to travel to Johannesburg, South Africa, as part of Pitt’s Engineering Design for Social Change study abroad program where students investigated the social impact of business decisions made by South African companies. He says what he saw there “blew his mind.”

“People are living in tin houses and having to find places to dump their waste. I’m moved to make the world more equitable, which is part of sustainability,” Kareem said. “This profit over people thing has to change. We need to balance environment, equity, and economy and we need to prioritize it in that order.” continued on next page > > >

Pictured above is Kareem Rabbat showing off the shipping container that has been converted to a house biodigester and greenhouse.

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This summer, as part of the grant-funded Mascaro Center program, Kareem is looking for bacteria and fungi that could solve persistent pollution problems. Specifically, he is looking at nonylphenol and bisphenol (BPA) that contaminate soil and water near old industrial facilities. His project involves collecting soil samples from contaminated locations and then harvesting and selectively breeding organisms that have naturally begun feeding on the contaminants.

If he is successful, those harvested and grown bacteria and fungi could be sown into contaminated soil around the world to eliminate the toxicity. Such a solution would be much more energy- and cost-efficient than current cleanup methods that often include removal and incineration of thousands of tons of soil.

“We want to let nature do the work rather than using an extremely expensive and disruptive process.” Kareem said.

In his spare time, Kareem is working on getting a small business off the ground. Ecotone Renewable LLC is the offshoot of a project funded through a competitive grant he and a group of students earned from the Ford College Community Challenge. The team converted a shipping container into an aquaponics system but later decided it would be better to feed the plants using food waste collected from local sources. The Ecotone team used resources at the University of Pittsburgh Innovation Institute to develop the business plan.

With the help of additional grants, the students contracted with a Seattle company to custom build a small-scale biodigester and install it in the 28 X 8 X 8 foot structure. Bacteria in the reactor turn the food waste into methane (which is used to run a generator) and fertilizer (some of which is used to feed the plants growing in a hydroponic greenhouse on the roof).

“Nearly a quarter of the nation’s waste stream is food waste, so we decided to incorporate that into

Using Nature to Protect Cities from Extreme Weather on the project. Daniel Bain, PhD, assistant professor of geology and environmental science and associate director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Water Collaboratory, will also contribute his expertise to the Pitt team.

“Cities across the country experience flooding when severe weather strikes due to their overtaxed and aging stormwater infrastructure,” says Dr. Ng. “Here in Pittsburgh, a combined sewer system means water quality is often hit as well. We want to give cities the ability to use natural features that will not only improve water management and enhance the livability of the surrounding community, but are also more adaptive, robust and resilient than current systems.”

Linda Young, Dr. Peter Haas and Drew Williams-Clark at the Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago; and Nicole Chivaz and Laura Brenner Kimes at Greenprint Partners in Chicago are also on the team. Sarah States, PhD, director of research and science education at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, will contribute expertise towards biodiversity assessments and outreach activities in Pittsburgh.

The goal is to develop engineering tools that will allow communities to integrate nature-based green infrastructure, such as green roofs, rain gardens and porous pavements, with existing built infrastructure to manage storm

the system to be even more sustainable,” said Kareem.

Kareem also served on the Pitt Green Fund Advisory Board, which finances and supports student-initiated projects that make Pitt operations more environmentally sustainable, socially equitable, and energy efficient.

“The University of Pittsburgh has provided me opportunities to explore ecological engineering and bio systems engineering both inside and outside of the classroom in ways that help me understand how I can make a difference in the world,” Kareem said. “You just have to find what you’re passionate about and take advantage of all the University has to offer.”

By Mark Nootbaar, Senior Writer and Editor, University of Pittsburgh Office of Institutional Advancement.

Originally posted on giveto.pitt.edu; republished with permission.

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water in ways that help prevent flooding while improving water quality and ecological health. The collaboration will fundamentally reinvent the urban water cycle using a systems approach designed to operate with predictive and expanded performance metrics tailored to local conditions.

The researchers will use two topographically different cities with ongoing stormwater issues – Pittsburgh and Chicago – to establish a model that can be replicated in communities across the country. Phipps’ Center for Sustainable Landscapes, one of only a handful of certified Living Buildings in the United States, will provide historical data from several of its existing green infrastructure installations from which the team will build new models and understanding of green infrastructure function within the landscape.

“Using green infrastructure alongside the built environment can benefit the entire ecosystems, including humans, wildlife and vegetation,” says Dr. Ng. “We aim to identify and resolve the hurdles that have limited green infrastructure to single installations with limited real-time performance data or to plans that remain unrealized. Our goal is to apply engineering tools to real communities with real outcomes affecting real lives.”

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Built to Provoke, but Not Meant to Last Installation Outside Benedum Hall Encourages Thought About Non-Conventional Building Materials

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n the plaza just outside Benedum Hall, University of Pittsburgh students from architecture and engineering installed a distinctive structure with pillars of hollow cardboard, filled with sand for weight and support, which held a curving fence of bamboo slats, secured with shredded plastic bottles and plywood chains. A plywood bench supported by the cardboard tubes marked the center and invited passersby.

The structure, displayed from April to July, was made from nonconventional materials including bamboo, harvested from local yards where it grew invasively; cardboard tubes donated by Sonoco Products; teak oil-treated plywood, most of which was fabricated right on campus; and recycled plastic bottles.

Called “NOCMAT Pavilion,” the installation was the result of a collaboration between the Swanson School of Engineering, the Architectural Studies Program, the Pitt Non-Conventional Materials and Technologies Group (PITTNOCMAT), and the Pitt Makerspace. It was constructed through a course led by Jennifer Donnelly, PhD, called NOCMAT Design-Build Studio.

Chase Rogers BSCE ’19 had the idea when he and a friend realized how little experience they had working with nonconventional materials, like bamboo and cardboard, and how abundant those materials are. He approached Drew Armstrong, PhD, director of Architectural Studies, and Swanson School Professors Kent Harries, PhD, and Ian Nettleship, PhD, with the idea. Through the efforts of Dr. Armstrong, the NOCMAT studio course was initiated, and Rogers served as mentor throughout the project.

“This project let us work with materials that we’re not used to getting our heads around,” said Rogers. “It’s meant to simulate construction waste.

These are materials that could be recycled into housing or expedient shelters in places of need.”

The Architectural Studies students enrolled in the course designed the structure themselves and worked with members of PITT-NOCMAT to build it, utilizing the Pitt Makerspace led by Brandon Barber to fabricate the parts.

“The work produced this semester demonstrates how the two programs share a common interest in thinking about design, materials and hands-on learning.

The successful completion of the project shows how resources and expertise located in different schools at Pitt can be combined to produce an unexpected outcome,” says Dr. Armstrong. “It was a major learning experience both for

the students and for the instructors; it will be the basis for thinking about future collaborative courses and projects.”

At an initial meeting looking for interested students, the planning had already begun, but constructing with the materials brought challenges.

“We had to definitely learn in the moment and adapt our knowledge of traditional materials to fabricate these materials and put it all together,” said Rogers. “The tubes are particularly susceptible to moisture and had to be meticulously protected from the elements to last longer than a day.

Fitting them together and giving them shape was another challenge that required ingenious connections like the three-ring chain link that gives the bamboo screen its curved shape.”

“Modularity became very important,” said Dr. Donnelly. “You’re working with these three-inch cardboard tubes, which are all uniform, alongside natural bamboo, which behaves how it wants.”

“You can design materials to do anything you want, but reuse is more challenging and teaches a different skill set,” said Dr. Harries. “The students overcame challenges to build this structure using unfamiliar materials, and that experience will serve them well in their future careers.”

The purpose of the project was not just to create an interesting space in which the university community and public can gather. Though the materials went through rigorous tests to see how they would withstand temperature changes and rainfall, the materials would still degrade, which the group monitored over time..

“This project shows us how these materials work out in the elements. We’re excited to see not only what these materials can do, but how they will age, which is as important as anything else,” said Dr. Donnelly.

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Let’s Clear the Air

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for environmental issues; the Urban Transition Cities Movement (UTCM) brought together unlikely stakeholders community members, non-profit leaders, small businesses, universities, governmental agencies, youth and public officials.

Because of these initiatives, community members have become more involved and aware of environmental issues, knowledgeable about green materials, infrastructure and land use practices.

Dr. Rickenbacker, lead author of the paper, dedicated himself to integrating with the community to truly understand its needs and the best way to fill them. He attended community meetings, church gatherings and other events.

A mobile air quality monitoring bicycle campaign

A Climate for Change In addition to the welcoming environment, students and new investigators can receive NSF funding for registration, travel and accommodations, a rarity at academic conferences.

“When I first attended in 2011, it seemed approachable and accessible, with a breadth that I found really intriguing,” says Brent Stephens, PhD, associate professor and department chair of civil, architectural, and environmental engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. “I was planning to defend my dissertation within about a year, and I was starting to think about job opportunities, so it was important to get my work out there and get more experience presenting.

Then I also received NSF support to attend, which made it easy and accessible.”

One of the most significant draws for attendees, however, is the camaraderie that has developed over the years.

“Somehow they make it feel more like a reunion every two years and something I strongly desire to go to each time,” remarks Dr. Stephens. “It marks a sort of ‘it’s been two years already?’ moment in my mind.”

took researchers and community members to the streets, riding bikes mounted with air particulate counters that give a real-time map of air quality in the area. More than that, it provided the researchers a way to be visible and connect with the community, who would often stop them to ask what they were doing.

For their research, Drs. Bilec and Rickenbacker were recognized with the inaugural Senior Vice Chancellor for Engagement’s Partnerships of Distinction Award at Pitt, which recognizes partnerships that are exemplars of community engagement at Pitt.

“We found the most important thing we could do was to be present, to listen to the citizens

and figure out how our research can help them,” says Mr. Rickenbacker. “Community-based initiatives are effective, but they have to be a sustained partnership, not a one-off event.”

The paper, “Creating Environmental Consciousness in Underserved Communities: Implementation and Outcomes of CommunityBased Environmental Justice and Air Pollution Research,” was published in Sustainable Cities and Society (DOI10.1016/j.scs.2019.101473) and was coauthored by Dr. Bilec and Fred Brown of the Forbes Fund.

1 “Environmental Justice.” Paul Mohai, David Pellow, J. Timmons Roberts.

Annual Review of Environment and Resources 2009 34:1, 405-430.

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Annie Pearce, PhD, associate professor of building construction at Virginia Tech, has been attending the conference since it began in 2005 and has experienced first-hand how powerful the community is. Though she had to miss this year, she has been a featured speaker, presenter and author and has brought students to the conference, as well. She also began serving on the MCSI External Advisory Board in 2011.

“You see familiar faces every time, and they introduce you to new faces that you’ll see the next time,” says Dr. Pearce. “I find that it’s a great place to establish a dialogue that continues over time.”

As a featured speaker in 2007, Dr. Pearce recounts that the engagement turned out to be a fateful one for her – she was on a plane to Pittsburgh for the conference when the April 16 Virginia Tech shootings took place on her campus.

“I was lucky not to be on campus, but 32 of my colleagues and students were not so lucky.

While I was heartbroken for my community back in Virginia, my friends and colleagues from the Mascaro Center and the conference overall made me feel wonderfully supported,” she says. “I leaned hard on them that year, for sure.”

The Engineering Sustainability Conference will return in 2021, gathering the community back to Pittsburgh once again, a living example of the “Climate for Change” that this year’s conference centered around.

“Pittsburgh hasn’t always been beautiful – I remember what it was like back in the ‘70s and ‘80s when the mills were still running,” says Dr. Pearce, who is a native Pittsburgher. “However, it’s an amazing example of how a place can transform itself for the better when it has the right people, ideas, and investments. I miss it a lot, and I’m happy to know that I can go there with my students every two years and get ‘recharged’ with ideas.”

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AWARDS HONORS

The Incline Pittsburgh selected Aurora Sharrard, Director of Sustainability, University of Pittsburgh and environmental engineering senior Kareem Rabbat, Chief Innovation Officer, Ecotone Renewables, as part of its inaugural class of Who’s Next: Environment and Energy awardees.

The publication named 13 people who are making Pittsburgh cleaner, more environmentally conscious, and more environmentally sound.

The Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation announced its 2019-2020 seed grant recipients. The grants support CEE graduate student and post-doctoral fellows on one-year research projects that are focused on sustainability.

Toward Using Microbes for Sustainable Construction Materials: Feasibility Study Sarah Haig and Steven Sachs, civil & environmental engineering *Jointly funded by MCSI and IRISE Investigating flexible piezoelectric materials with lower water pressures Katherine Hornbostel, mechanical engineering & materials science Max Stephens, civil & environmental engineering Robert O. Agbede BSCE ’79 MSCE ’81 was elected to the University of Pittsburgh Board of Trustees during its annual meeting on June 28, 2019. Mr. Agbede currently serves as vice chair of Hatch USA, a global management, engineering and development consulting firm. He is the former CEO and owner of Chester Engineers, which merged with Hatch Ltd., in 2017. Mr. Agbede built Chester Engineers into one of the largest African

American owned water/wastewater, energy and environmental engineering firms in the United States. He established several mentorship and scholarship opportunities at the Swanson School, including the Robert O. Agbede Scholarship for African American students pursuing engineering degrees and the Robert O. Agbede Annual Diversity Award to encourage recruitment and retention of African American faculty and students. In 2009, the University’s African American Alumni Council presented him with the Distinguished Alumni Award for Achievement in Business.

Faculty Awards Melissa Bilec, associate professor, Roberta A. Luxbacher Faculty Fellow, and Deputy Director of the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation was appointed Director of Faculty Community Building and Engagement in the PITT STRIVE Program, which works to improve the transitions of under-represented minorities into doctoral engineering programs. In this position, Dr. Bilec will lead key Faculty-Centered Strategies and Faculty Learning Community Activities to help improve faculty engagement with underrepresented minority students.

Leanne Gilbertson, assistant professor, received the Mara H. Wasburn Early Engineering Educator Grant from the American Society for Engineering Education Women in Engineering Division (WIED). The grant honors and supports women who at the beginning of their academic career have the potential to contribute to the engineering education community and support the mission of WIED. In 2019 four awards were

ENGINEERING.PITT.EDU

presented to female faculty and students who have a demonstrated commitment to innovation in teaching and/or potential for substantial contributions to the field.

Sarah Haig, assistant professor, received the Swanson School Office of Diversity “Best STRIVE pre-PhD mentor award” for advising Isaiah Spencer-Williams. Mr. Williams, the former Pittsburgh Chapter National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) president, was likewise awarded a PITT STRIVE PhD fellowship which will help support his PhD in Civil & Environmental Engineering under the advisement of Dr. Haig.

PITT STRIVE, an NSF AGEP-KAT program, supports underrepresented minority doctoral students at the Swanson School.

Piervincenzo Rizzo, professor, will receive the 2020 A. J. Durelli Award from the Society for Experimental Mechanics. The award is named for an experimental stress analyst known for seeking new methods to solve problems, rather than relying on existing methods. The award recognizes “a young professional who has introduced, or helped to introduce, an innovative approach and/or method into the field of experimental mechanics.”

Student Awards Nathanial Buettner BSCE ’19 was one of four Swanson School undergraduate students to receive a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. His work in the Pavement Mechanics and Materials Laboratory aims to advance research on concrete pavements. He plans to pursue a PhD in civil engineering at the

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Swanson School under the advisement of Dr. Julie Vandenbossche.

Kaitie DeOre BSCE ’20 was selected to receive the 2019 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Region 2 Outstanding Student Award in recognition of her contributions to Pitt’s ASCE Student Chapter, the community, and the engineering profession. DeOre serves as president of Pitt’s student chapter. Prior to her current appointment, she held the role of service/outreach chair where she established a strong volunteer base with the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and other organizations. In 2019 DeOre planned Pitt ASCE’s first annual Civil Engineering Day, an event that targeted high school students interested in civil engineering and facilitated hands-on activities, lab tours, professional demonstrations, and faculty panels.

Harold Rickenbacker, PhD ’19 was the 2019 recipient of the Carnegie Science Award in the College/University Student category. Dr. Rickenbacker was recognized for integrating engineering and environmental justice with community-based organizations to address the pressing issue of indoor and ambient air quality in under-served Pittsburgh neighborhoods. Through an initiative in Pittsburgh’s East End called the Environmental Justice Community Alert Matrix, he led trainings to provide over 200 residents with the technical knowledge to identify environmental concerns within their homes, while detailing the importance of addressing environmental sustainability at the nexus of water use, energy consumption, and air pollution.

Nathan Sloan BSCE ’19 was named to the 2019 All-ACC Outdoor Track & Field Team. Sloan earned a bachelor’s degree in civil and environmental engineering with a focus in he engineering and construction management. A native of Gibsonia, Pa., he is a field/office engineer with Kiewit Corp. in Denver, Colo. The All-ACC Academic Outdoor Track & Field Team has stringent academic requirements for its athletes, in addition to its high athletic standards. Team members must have maintained at least a 3.0 grade point average in the previous semester and have a 3.0 cumulative grade point average for their academic careers.

New Faculty

Amir H. Alavi, Assistant Professor Prior to joining the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Alavi was an assistant professor of civil engineering at the University of Missouri.

His multidisciplinary research integrates sensing, computation, control, networking, and information systems into the civil infrastructure to create smart cyber-physical infrastructure systems. Dr. Alavi’s research interests include smart infrastructure systems, structural health monitoring, deployment of advanced sensors, energy harvesting, and civil engineering system informatics. He has authored 6 books and more than 170 publications in archival journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings, and has received several awards for his journal articles.

Dr. Alavi is among the Google Scholar 200 Most Cited Authors in Civil Engineering, as well as Web of Science ESI’s Top 1% of Scientific Minds in the World. Dr. Alavi received his PhD in civil engineering from Michigan State University.

Aleksandar Stevanovic, Associate Professor Dr. Stevanovic previously served as an associate professor of civil, environmental and geomatics engineering at the Florida Atlantic University (FAU). He was also the director of the Laboratory of Adaptive Traffic Operations and Management (LATOM) and the Program Leader in Infrastructure Systems within the FAU Institute for Sensing and Embedded Network Systems Engineering (I-SENSE). He teaches courses in transportation and traffic engineering, transportation planning, and operations research and conducts research in a variety of subjects including traffic signal control systems, intelligent transportation systems, multimodal and sustainable operations, transportation simulation modeling, etc. Dr. Stevanovic has advised more than 35 graduate students and five post-doctoral associates and has served on PhD committees of several international university graduate programs. He has been awarded a Fulbright Specialist in the area of urban network traffic control for the period 2018-2021.

Dr. Stevanovic earned his B.Sc. in traffic and transportation engineering at the University of Belgrade (Serbia) followed by M.Sc. and PhD in civil engineering at the University of Utah.

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Distilling a Solution for Fracking Wastewater continued from page 5 regional synergies and opportunities for utilizing the waste heat to treat SGWW,” said Dr. Khanna.

“This is a win-win scenario where we are using available unexploited waste heat to treat SGWW and simultaneously producing high quality water that could be used for agriculture and other industries.

Pictured from left to right are U.S. Steel Dean James Martin with Ms. Omer and Leonard Casson, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering.

2019 Distinguished CEE Alumna: Ruthann Omer

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uthann Omer, P.E., BSCE ‘83, President and CEO of Omer Advisors, was the 2019 recipient of the Swanson School’s Distinguished Alumni Award for Civil and Environmental Engineering.

“For more than 150 years, civil engineering alumni from Pitt have made outstanding contributions to society and human life, and Ruthann is no exception,” said James R. Martin II, U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering. “We would like to recognize her for her impact on the field of civil engineering in the region, as well as her philanthropic support of the next generation of women engineers.”

Ms. Omer was the President of The Gateway Engineers where for 25 years she helped create and implement successful business strategies. The company has over 150 employees and three offices in the region. Ms. Omer spent over three decades serving on the Board of Directors while also managing a wide range of civil engineering projects for seven municipalities in Southwestern PA. She broke barriers in the engineering business as the first female municipal engineer in Allegheny County. As a female executive in a historically male-lead industry, Ms. Omer implemented creative strategies that allowed a boutique local engineering firm to grow into a full-service engineering company that ranked consistently among the ENR’s top 500 A/E firms.

Ms. Omer was the youngest graduate of the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce Leadership Pittsburgh Program Year VIII. After taking her EIT in college, she obtained her Professional Engineers license from Pennsylvania. She has received numerous accolades for achievements including the “Pennsylvania State Engineer of the Year” and the “Pittsburgh Business Times Woman of Influence Award,” and is touted as an expert in local government relations and infrastructure systems regional planning and implementation.

After 40 years with Gateway Engineers, Ms. Omer retired and started another consulting firm, Omer Advisors, Inc., where she continues to work in the government relations field.

“Rather than building treatment units at individual drilling sites or a large centralized treatment facility in the Marcellus and Utica formations in the Northeast or the Permian Basin in the South and Plains states, we can modularize the process. This has the advantage of reducing capital investment as well as the need to transport SGWW to a centralized treatment facility,” Dr. Khanna said.

“This enables us to create a flexible and adaptable framework for natural gas-producing companies to access on a site-by-site basis.”

Because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency prohibits the disposal of SGWW in any body of water, Dr. Vidic notes that effective, economic disposal is a pinch point for industry. “Our preliminary experimental and techno-economic assessment studies have shown promising results for economical and environmentally conscious management of SGWW using membrane distillation,” said Dr. Vidic.

“In Pennsylvania, for example, drillers may use wastewater to frack the next well, but when you run out of new wells to frack, you still need to deal with SGWW that is generated by the producing wells. Meanwhile in a drought region like Texas where water is an even more precious commodity, the wastewater is disposed of in deep wells, Dr. Vidic said.

“In either case, transporting freshwater and wastewater back and forth is expensive and unsustainable in the long term. Our collaborators are greatly vested in this technology because it is more economical and sustainable, and reduces risk to the environment, while securing our country’s vast energy resources for decades.”

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Pitt Students Win First Place Overall at Ohio Valley Student Conference

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rom traditional skills like geotechnical surveys and designing a water treatment system, to the extravagant like building canoes and Frisbees out of concrete, students at the annual Ohio Valley Student Conference (OVSC) are challenged on their knowledge as well as their ingenuity.

which is a somewhat of an accomplishment in and of itself,” says Todd Allen-Gifford, CEE student and ASCE chapter president. “From these competitions, our members get hands-on engineering experience, including learning how to weld steel, how to design and form concrete, how to survey land to collect data, and much more.”

This year, Students in the American Society of Civil Engineers Student Chapter at the Swanson School of Engineering rose to the challenge, bringing home first place overall.

The group competed against 14 other schools in the Ohio Valley and were ranked first based on the results of individual competitions:

The conference took place April 11-12 at the University of Akron in Ohio. Students in ASCE chapters from Ohio, Kentucky and western Pennsylvania had to take the technical knowledge from the classroom and apply it to real-world situations.

• Environmental – Designing a Water-Treatment System: 3rd place

“We are proud to be an entirely student run organization from top to bottom. Our team members and team captains have done an incredible job of making this possible, and our Vice President, Matt Paradise, has worked extremely hard to coordinate this conference for our chapter. We are also very proud to say that we participate in every competition that is offered,

• Surveying: 1st place

• Environmental Technical Paper: 1st place • Technical Paper (Mead paper) – Ethical Importance of Diversity and Inclusion: 1st place • Civil Site Design: 2nd place • Concrete Frisbee: 2nd place • Spirit of the Competition Award The teams also participated in a balsa wood bridge competition, a geotechnical competition using soil to build water dams, and a concrete canoe competition.

“Our concrete canoe team takes concrete design and construction to a new level,” says Allen-Gifford. “They spend countless hours experimenting with lightweight materials in order to make the concrete durable while ensuring the canoe is an appropriate density in order to float properly. Other considerations include the comfort of the rowers, the steering of the boat, aesthetics of the canoe, and more.”

Nearly 50 students in the Pitt ASCE chapter attend the conference every year.

“We’re proud of the great work demonstrated by our students at this year’s competition,” says Anthony Iannacchione, associate professor and ASCE faculty advisor. “Pitt’s ASCE student chapter has performed at a high level for many years. That comes from enthusiastic, forward looking chapter officers and board members, a talented student body that often numbers well over 170-members, timely assistance from the CEE faculty and staff, and a supportive civil engineering community in the Pittsburgh region. We all have come to expect this kind of exemplary performance from our student groups.”

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

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Remembering Karl Lewis Professor Emeritus Karl H. Lewis, who played a pivotal role in changing the cultural diversity of engineers at the University of Pittsburgh, died on March 5, 2019 in Pittsburgh. He was 83.

Born on January 15, 1936 in St. Lawrence, Barbados to Everett and Ione Lewis, he would later attend Howard University where he majored in civil engineering. Subsequently, in 1966, he received his PhD in civil engineering with specialization in geotechnical engineering from Purdue University and then accepted a professorship at the University of Pittsburgh.

During his tenure at Pitt, Dr. Lewis founded the Pitt Engineering IMPACT Program in 1969 to recruit, retain and successfully graduate black and other underrepresented engineers.

IMPACT had been recognized by agencies such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science as one of the outstanding science-engineering projects of its type and was one of the first two recipients of the Chancellor’s Award for Achievement in Affirmative Action at Pitt. In 2004, IMPACT alumni established the Dr. Karl H. Lewis Engineering IMPACT Alumni Endowed Fund to support Black engineering students. In 2006 he received the Golden Torch Award for Lifetime Achievement from the National Society of Black Engineers.

Dr. Lewis often said, “I didn’t want recognition. I just wanted to change the system. Some people came back and thanked me, but that wasn’t my point. I had people who helped me change the narrative.”

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