2020 Swanson School Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Newsletter

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

CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING FALL 2020

Converging on a Global Waste Solution

University of Pittsburgh Leads Multidisciplinary $1.3 Million NSF Award to Address Global Waste through Circular Economy Design

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n less than a generation, the plastic bottle evolved from inexpensive convenience to scourge.

What once was an accessory on the fashion runway has polluted the earth’s oceans, while plastic microparticles have been found in many living organisms. Recycling efforts have attempted to curb plastic overuse and misuse, but in the U.S. alone only 30 percent of plastic is recycled, while globally almost 20,000 plastic bottles are produced every second. And plastic is only one of the many types of waste – from construction materials to electronics and paper – that industries and government are attempting to reroute from landfills.

However, recycling is only part of the solution to control, let alone mitigate, the proliferation of waste. A five-university team, led by the Swanson School of Engineering and the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, will utilize convergence research to address this complex challenge. Their proposal, Convergence Around the Circular Economy, received a two-year, $1.3 million award from the National Science Foundation’s new Growing Convergence Research program. The award has the potential to be extended to five years and $3.6 million.

“Convergence research is one of NSF’s “Big Ideas” to bring together a diverse team that can break apart silos and develop novel research paradigms to solve pressing societal challenges,” explained Melissa Bilec, deputy director of the Mascaro Center, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Roberta A. Luxbacher Faculty Fellow at Pitt, and the award’s principal investigator. “I am personally interested in high-impact research that addresses significant societal challenges. Circular economy offers a promising solution as it aims to cycle products and materials back into production through creating new products or benign degradation.” continued on page 2 > > >

Le Problème des Plastiques French Government Invites Pitt Professor Melissa Bilec to Deliver Testimony on Plastic Pollution

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lastic pollution is one of the many pressing environmental problems facing humanity. On December 12 and 13, 2019, in Paris and Le Mans, France, Melissa Bilec was invited by the French Embassy in the U.S. and the French Government to provide her perspective on solutions to this demanding problem.

Bilec’s work in circular economy solutions to plastic waste earned her an invitation to present her expertise to the Parliamentary Office for Scientific and Technological Assessment (OPECST). OPECST is composed of 18 members of the National Assembly and 18 senators, with the purpose of studying and assessing research that continued on page 3 > > >

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Converging on a Global Waste Solution... continued from page 1 Within the Swanson School and the Mascaro Center, Bilec, an expert in high-performance buildings and environmental impacts, assembled experts in polymers and green molecular design, life cycle assessment, industrial ecology, blockchain, and complexity leadership theory. External members were recruited from Rochester Institute of Technology, the University of Illinois at Chicago and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Maine.

“For centuries, the global consumption model for any product has been linear – ‘take, make, waste.’ As the global population continues to grow, this places enormous pressures on all parts of the supply chain and ultimately results in a negative environmental impact, as we’ve seen with plastic bottles and containers,” explained Eric J. Beckman, Co-Director of the Mascaro Center and distinguished service professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at Pitt. “This, however, is a difficult philosophy for the chemical industry, whose production processes and inside-the-box thinking have remained virtually unchanged for more than 70 years,” Beckman added. “What has

changed – and what industry wasn’t prepared for – is that consumers are demanding a fix.”

Circling the Research Wagons Bilec’s convergence research team includes engineers, economists, anthropologists, and environmental assessment experts, each of whom will leverage their own expertise toward addressing this global waste crisis through circular economy fundamentals. Rather than focusing solely on creating a better plastic or improving recycling methods, the researchers will seek to develop novel business models, engagement approaches, policy options, and innovative technical and science-based advances that potentially could impact the entire lifecycle of plastics and construction materials.

“The problem with simply reusing or recycling stuff is knowing what’s in it, where it came from, where it is now. This is the reason why some plastic packaging, although made with components that individually are recyclable, has to be thrown away because there is no way to separate continued on next page > > >

Greetings from the Chair Dear colleagues and friends, Our lives and careers truly were transformed in the year since I last wrote. Expectations were turned on end as our universities quarantined, research labs closed, and students were sent home to transition to online learning. COVID-19 has impacted every one of us to different degrees. If you or a colleague lost a loved one to the virus, please accept my deepest sympathy. We do not know what the next year will bring, but as the University of Pittsburgh and our peer institutions work together on a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, we can collectively hope that our future will eventually brighten in 2021.

Even with our labs and classrooms vacant for part of the past year, our exceptional faculty and students endeavored to excel and face head-on the challenges of a global pandemic. I am excited about the bona fides our research groups have established in sustainable approaches to civil and environmental engineering. For example, Dr. Melissa Bilec continues to gain award-winning support for applying circular economy principles to address global waste. Her research is attracting the attention and lab support of

colleagues at other institutions – a tactic necessary if we are to solve this threat to our planet.

In a city formed and framed by three rivers (as well as an ancient glacial aquifer deep below), water is a laboratory for our research. You’ll read about how we are modeling its microbiome and the effect of climate change on this national resource. Likewise, with 446 bridges just in our city, structural health is another pillar of research that we are applying not only to bridges, but to the human body.

I do hope you enjoy our newsletter, and I look forward to when we can collaborate and share ideas in person.

Until then, stay safe and healthy, and accept my wishes for a productive 2021.

Sincerely,

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

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Le Problème des Plastiques... continued from page 1

these parts,” noted Vikas Khanna, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and Wellington C. Carl Faculty Fellow at Pitt. “To determine a product’s life cycle, there is a tremendous amount of data that needs to be collected, sourced and distributed to even begin finding sustainable solutions.”

Funding for Change “Solving the global waste problem demands a sea-change of thought and accepted practices across so many disciplines and industries, which is why this NSF funding is critical,” Bilec said. “This will require potentially disruptive change, but with a convergence approach we can create a more equitable and sustainable set of solutions that benefit the planet as a whole.”

This year, Bilec has also received $98,000 from the NSF to convene a panel of experts to meet for a workshop on the circular economy that will help set the research agenda for years to come. The workshop brings together experts and thought leaders in academia, industry, government and nonprofits to discuss circular economy design from molecules to the built environment. In the course of three threehour sessions over three weeks in September 2020, the workshop provided an opportunity for the wide array of invited constituents to discuss and develop ideas in circular economy research.

“This is a fantastic opportunity to build, foster and facilitate the community around this emerging area of sustainability research. It also has the potential to shape the direction of major research in the coming years,” Bilec said.

Beckman’s work on the circular economy also received a $400,000 University of Pittsburgh Scaling Grant this year. The project, “Attacking the Global Plastics Waste Problem,” seeks to create a convergent academic center welcoming expertise from across the University that will focus on the circular economy as a solution to plastic waste.

“For most new technologies, one group creates the technology in the lab as a pilot, then at full scale.

The group launches it, and only later decides if there are environmental and/or policy and/or legal issues,” said Beckman. “We’re proposing to do these analyses in parallel, so that each section of the work informs the others. Further, the technology we are proposing to develop is a mixture of chemical engineering, chemistry, and materials science.”

The interdisciplinary team will take advantage of its deep expertise in both the science of plastics recycling and the legal and governance frameworks that will help governments implement a circular economy for plastics.

applies to policy decisions. Specifically, Bilec’s presentation will inform French politicians Angèle Préville, Senator for Lot, and Deputy Philippe Bolo, member of the National Assembly for Maine-etLoire, as they lead a study on plastic pollution.

“Complex problems like plastic waste require convergent, systems-level perspectives; circular economy solutions should be considered as a strong and viable solution to address plastic waste,” says Bilec. “I am grateful for the opportunity to share my expertise and ideas on designing products and processes to close loops with those who can enact them on the global stage.”

Following the testimony to OPECST, Bilec was also invited to speak at the workshop, “Responding to Plastic Pollution through Science: From Research to Action,” in Le Mans, France, which was attended by Senator Preville and Deputy Bolo, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Embassy of France in the United States.

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There’s Something in the Water

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Understanding the Microbial Community Hiding in Our Showers Sarah Haig’s New INHALE Lab Tests How Consumer Choices Impact their Exposure to Microbes in Shower Water

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n Benedum Hall, nine shower heads in three brand new shower stalls run for eight minutes every day.

Eight minutes is the average time an American spends in the shower, though no one is using these showers for their typical purpose. Instead, they’re part of the Investigating Home Water and Aerosols’ Links to Opportunistic Pathogen Exposure (INHALE) Lab, led by Sarah Haig, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering.

Prior to joining the Swanson School, Haig worked with cystic fibrosis patients and their families, testing their plumbing for opportunistic pathogens (OPs) that could pose danger to their compromised immune systems, like nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In that role, parents would ask what they can do at

home to limit bacterial growth and exposure.

That work inspired the INHALE Lab, where they can compare materials and disinfection strategies and inform the public about their effectiveness.

The 250 square foot lab has its own water heaters and its own plumbing. The shower heads are a mix of standard plastic and metal shower heads and shower heads embedded with antimicrobial silver. Several projects will utilize the lab’s unique capabilities.

One project, which has received seed grant funding from the Central Research Development Fund at Pitt, will examine the effectiveness of several prevention methods on the number of OPs that can become airborne when the shower is running – the most common way users are exposed to OPs. The work will assess the effectiveness of disinfection strategies as well as different kinds of shower heads, including standard shower heads and ones modified with antimicrobial compounds or filtration devices.

“It’s a scary thought, one I’d bet you’d never had before: You might be taking a shower in waterborne pathogens!” said Janet E. Stout, president of the Special Pathogens Laboratory, research associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Pitt, and internationally recognized expert on the management and control of waterborne pathogens. “The INHALE lab will help us understand the microbes in our showers, continued on page 6 > > >

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Modeling the Complexity of the World’s Water Research Team Led by Pitt Receives More than $1.3 Million to Develop “CyberWater” Modeling Framework

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nderstanding the earth’s water systems is a complicated endeavor. Factors like climate, air and water quality, ecosystem, droughts, erosion, sediments and the impact of human activity need to be taken into account when creating a model that would accurately predict, for example, how the scale and frequency of floods and droughts will be affected by climate change in the coming years.

Yet such a model would require a tremendous amount of valuable and diverse data that are not always readily available; specialized models from across diverse disciplines; high-performance computing (HPC) resources to develop integrated model simulations and store the massive outputs; and a sizable group of researchers to orchestrate it.

Now, a national, cross-disciplinary team of researchers, led by Xu Liang, professor of civil and environmental engineering, has received a combined $1.3 million from the National Science Foundation to create a new cyberinfrastructure framework that can build such a model, with $437,232 designated for Pitt.

CyberWater, an open framework of cyberinfrastructure, will enable easy integration of diverse data sets and models for investigating

water resources and climate-related environmental issues. It will allow users to integrate many different models without the need for coding, and it will enable reproducible computing and seamless, on-demand access to various HPC resources.

“Understanding environmental issues, like flooding, depends on so many factors – topography, soil, changes in land cover and vegetation, human activity, and more,” says Liang. “Critical questions like this one can only be answered by looking at all these factors and how they interact, but before CyberWater, they couldn’t easily be considered together without the benefit of a large team of researchers from different disciplines, working together over multiple years.”

The new cyberinfrastructure framework will allow scientists to discover, access and use diverse sets of data, and link that data to multiple models at once. The user can then assess and evaluate how the models interact and, ultimately, test comprehensive hypotheses and alternate process representations using the coupled models.

Liang will work with a team of experts to create this modeling platform: computer scientists and cyber experts from Indiana UniversityPurdue University Indianapolis, Indiana University, and Ball State University; climate scientists from North Carolina State University; and hydrologists from Iowa University and the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI).

The grant, titled “Collaborative Research: CyberWater – An open and sustainable framework for diverse data and model integration with provenance and access to HPC,” will continue through 2022.

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Understanding the Microbial Community... continued from page 4

Structured Solutions

how they’re disseminated, and most importantly, how to control them under conditions that replicate your own shower.”

Another current project received $330,000 in funding from the National Science Foundation to study the effect of silver in shower heads on the OP Legionella and whether antibiotic resistance is induced due to silver exposure.

Staying on Track

“Water fixtures containing silver are believed to eliminate bacteria due to the antimicrobial properties of this heavy metal; however, heavy metal exposure is also known to transform some bacteria into antibiotic resistant forms,” said Leanne Gilbertson, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and lead researcher on the study.

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Antibiotic resistance is a major threat to global health, food security, and development, so Gilbertson and her colleagues will use this award and the unique capabilities of the INHALE Lab to determine if these silvercoated fixtures provide a viable solution or are perhaps doing more harm than good.

To help address this issue, researchers at the Swanson School of Engineering have developed a nondestructive evaluation method to measure stress in rails, with the eventual aim of calculating when the ambient temperature will be problematic.

Eventually, Haig hopes the INHALE Lab’s research will help families, hospitals and other facilities make decisions that will keep vulnerable populations safe from potentially harmful OPs. “For healthy individuals, these OPs are not generally a problem. Water is not – and isn’t meant to be – sterile. But for people who are immunocompromised or have existing pulmonary conditions, they can be deadly,” Haig noted. “Opportunistic pathogens are natural members of the water community, so you can’t feasibly eliminate them, but it’s a numbers game. When you reduce the number of pathogens, you can reduce your risk – we now just need to focus on understanding how to do this.”

emperature is an important factor when engineering for the outdoors because materials can change with the weather. Modern railways, the kinds used for highspeed trains, are made of continuous welded rails (CWRs) that are pre-expanded when set so they won’t buckle in the warm weather or crack in the cold. Ensuring the rails remain this way is vital for the safety of trains and longevity of the tracks, but the rails can change with wear, meaning the temperature at which the rail is neither contracting or expanding can fluctuate over time.

“When the temperature outside is hotter or colder than usual, trains slow down as a precautionary measure to prevent excess strain on the rails,” explains Piervincenzo Rizzo, professor of civil and environmental engineering, who leads the research.

“Unnecessary slowdowns create train delays and interruptions in the supply chain, which is why realtime monitoring of the stress on the rails would be so beneficial to the industry.”

Rizzo and co-author Amir Nasrollahi published their work in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Journal of Nondestructive Evaluation, Diagnostics and Prognostics of Engineering Systems. ASME selected Rizzo’s paper, “Numerical Analysis and Experimental Validation of a Nondestructive Evaluation Method to Measure Stress in Rails,” as one of the top three papers in the 2019 Best Paper competition. It was also recognized at the 47th Annual Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation, held in July 2020.

Nasrollahi, who previously was a PhD candidate and then post-doctoral researcher in Rizzo’s Laboratory for Nondestructive Evaluation and Structural Health Monitoring Studies at Pitt, is currently a post-doctoral researcher at Stanford University.

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Bridging the Gaps in Bridge Inspection Data

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he Commonwealth of Pennsylvania maintains over 25,000 bridges, and the average age of those bridges is 50 years, with a significant portion of them in poor condition. Making sure these bridges are safe is a vital job, but it’s also dangerous.

Every year, an estimated average of 23 bridge inspectors of state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) lose their lives on the job, highlighting the need for an automated inspection method that is safe, accurate and efficient.

Amir Alavi, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, is undertaking a $200,000 project sponsored by the Impactful Resilient Infrastructure Science and Engineering (IRISE) Consortium at Pitt for work that will improve bridge assessment. IRISE is a public-private consortium focused on solving infrastructure durability problems.

Its members include Allegheny County, Golden Triangle Construction, Michael Baker International, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Alavi’s research will integrate three bridge assessment techniques: structural health monitoring (SHM), non-destructive evaluation (NDE) and visual inspection using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones. The study will establish a data fusion framework to identify the synergies among bridge degradation, remaining service life, and the SHM, NDE and UAV-collected data.

Though using UAVs is an emerging civil infrastructure inspection method, it is presenting its own challenges. In the arena of bridge inspection, one of the unanswered questions is how DOTs can integrate the UAV systems with NDE techniques to additionally track deterioration at a higher temporal resolution, or the frequency at which data is collected, improving service-life models forecasting.

“We have so many systems collecting different types of information about the condition of the civil infrastructure systems and, in particular, our bridges. However, the problem is how to combine this information to give inspectors a more descriptive picture of the health

status of the bridge,” says Alavi. “While one method can offer better temporal information, the other may provide better spatial resolution, giving more visual detail but less frequently. One of our primary goals is to identify the level of unique information provided by each data modality and then fuse the data with various levels of spatial and temporal resolution to help bridge inspectors make better decisions more efficiently.”

To pursue this research, Alavi and his team will collaborate with the Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation (CAIT) at Rutgers University, along with industry partner Wiss, Janney, Elstner (WJE) Inc. It will leverage the data collected by Rutgers’ Bridge Evaluation and Accelerated Structural Testing (BEAST) facility, the world’s first full-scale accelerated testing facility for bridges.

The goal of the research is for PennDOT and the other IRISE public partner agencies to implement the framework, gaining valuable information that will inform how – and how often – bridge inspectors should use the various modalities to monitor bridge health.

“Understanding bridge condition is a critical aspect of infrastructure durability,” says Julie Vandenbossche, director of IRISE and William Kepler Whiteford professor of civil and environmental engineering.

“We’re pleased that Dr. Alavi’s work will improve the state-of-thepractice in how those conditions are assessed.”

The team will address the reliability of the UAV-based assessment as compared to the commonly-used NDE methods.

“The autonomous robotic inspection is the future of bridge inspection, and UAVs play a key role in this game. The problems we are facing for a wide application of UAVs are basically technological issues,” says Alavi. “There are solutions, it’s only a matter of time and research, and our research is a step in the right direction for an effective UAV implementation for bridge inspection in Pennsylvania and beyond.”

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Applying Structural Monitoring Technology to the Human Spine

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mir H. Alavi has spent much of his career developing sensors to monitor the health of large, complex structures like bridges and roads. Now, he has applied those skills to a smaller and even more complex structure: the human spine. Alavi received $393,670 in funding from the National Institutes of Health to design and test a miniature, implantable, and battery-free sensor to monitor spinal fusion progress after surgery.

Spinal fusion is performed to treat a wide variety of spinal disorders. During the spinal fusion surgery, a special type of bone screw and symmetrical titanium or stainless-steel rods are implanted to stabilize vertebrae movement, which allow bone grafts to incorporate into the adjacent vertebra. Of the more than 400,000 lumbar spinal fusion surgeries performed each year, approximately 30 percent of cases experience postoperative complications.

A clear understanding of the spinal fusion rate is essential for better surgical outcomes. Currently, spinal fusion progress is assessed using radiographic images, such as X-ray and CT scans, which are costly, expose the patients to significant radiation, and, more importantly, do not provide a continuous history of the spinal fusion process. To avoid relying on radiographic imaging, Alavi’s team is developing wireless sensors that will be attached to the spine fixation device to monitor the spinal fusion process and will completely rely on the energy harvested from the spine’s natural micromovements for operation.

“This implantable sensor has a major advantage over other existing spinal implants in that it does not rely on batteries, which are not really suitable for biomedical implants due to their limited lifetime, large size, and chemical risks.

If there is spine movement, the sensor will power itself and track the progress of spinal fusion,” said Alavi. “Also, the data from the sensor can be wirelessly interrogated using a diagnostic ultrasound scanner, rather than the commonly-used RFID technology, which faces severe limitations inside the tissue.”

Clinicians can read the generated time-evolution curves using the ultrasound scanner to properly assess the bone fusion period, and for more accurate implant removal scheduling.

“Surgeons will be able to monitor the fusion process consistently over time simply with a portable scanner,” continued Alavi. “While CT scans and X-rays present only a ‘snapshot’ at the time where the measurements are taken, our sensor will give a clearer picture of the entire course of fusion.”

In addition to avoiding the costly imaging appointments, the sensor itself is expected to be inexpensive to produce – less than $5 in raw materials each.

Shantanu Chakrabartty, Clifford Murphy Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, and Richard Debski, professor of bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh and the co-director of the Orthopedic Robotics Laboratory, will lend their expertise to the project. The two-year grant is titled “Wireless, Self-Powered Sensors for Continuous and Long-Term Monitoring of Spinal Fusion Process” and began on Sept. 1, 2019.

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Battling BPA with Biofilms

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hemicals found in many common plastic consumer items have the potential to contaminate drinking water. One in particular, bisphenol A (BPA), could contribute to fertility problems, male impotence, heart disease and other conditions. Biofilms, although a common tool used by engineers to combat contaminants in water, often need the support of other technology to remove chemicals like BPA. New research led by David Sanchez has received $420,000 from the National Science Foundation to combine biofilms and electrodes to degrade BPA. Sanchez is assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and assistant director of the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation.

He and his group will collaborate on the project with Seok Hoon Hong, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

“Combining biofilms and electrochemistry can enhance our methods for removing contaminants from water,” explained Sanchez. “By finding the right combination of electrode morphology and microorganisms, we can ‘supercharge’ the ability of the microorganisms to degrade BPA.” BPA is commonly used in food packaging, such as plastic food and drink containers and as a lining in metal food cans to prevent corrosion.

Approximately 5 million tons are produced per year and it is used in everyday items from receipt paper to dental sealants. Because of its prevalence, BPA frequently shows up in the human body: the EPA found detectable levels of BPA in 93 percent of the urine samples they tested in the U.S. Biofilms are collections of microorganisms growing on surfaces – in this case, an electrode. The primary goal of the research is to increase the amount of BPA they can degrade by creating a perfect match between organism and electrode. Sanchez will be developing an electrode that gives the bacteria the ideal environment to thrive, while Hong will engineer and select the bacteria themselves.

“I believe there’s a ‘Goldilocks’ condition, where the properties of the electrode are just right to select for these microorganisms, and my goal is to find it,” said Sanchez. “If we’re successful, this will be a more effective and sustainable way to target the removal of these types of contaminants from water.”

Pitt Research Featured on December Cover of Environmental Science: Nano

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esearch from the Swanson School of Engineering was featured on the cover of the journal Environmental Science: Nano. “Leveraging Electrochemistry to Uncover the Role of Nitrogen in the Biological Reactivity of Nitrogen-Doped Graphene,” (DOI: 10.1039/C9EN00802K) was led

by Yan Wang and co-authored by Nathalia Aquino de Carvalho, graduate students in the Gilbertson Group, managed by Leanne M. Gilbertson, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering with a secondary appointment in chemical and petroleum engineering.

The research appeared on the cover of the December 2019 issue with graphics developed by Gilbertson and Kutay Sezginel, doctoral candidate working in the Wilmer Lab.

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AWARDS HONORS

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Faculty Eight Receive Mascaro Faculty Program in Sustainability Awards The University of Pittsburgh’s Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation (MCSI) named eight faculty awardees for the 2020 John C. Mascaro Faculty Program in Sustainability.

The one-year awards, created to enhance the University’s mission of interdisciplinary excellence in sustainability research and education, go to faculty members from all disciplines, who may apply as faculty fellows, scholars or lecturers.

John C. Mascaro Faculty Fellow in Sustainability: David Finegold, Graduate School of Public Health John C. Mascaro Faculty Scholars in Sustainability: Tony Kerzmann, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Sara Kuebbing, Department of Biological Sciences John C. Mascaro Faculty Lecturers in Sustainability: Joshua Groffman, Division of Communication and the Arts, Pitt Bradford Katherine Hornbostel, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Robert Kerestes, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Pamela Stewart, Department of Anthropology Andrew Strathern, Department of Anthropology

Members of the Swanson School Recognized by the Carnegie Science Awards Two members of the Swanson School’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering were recognized by the Carnegie Science Awards, announced on March 10 by the Carnegie Science Center. David Sanchez and Kareem Rabbat received honorable mentions in the categories of Postsecondary Educator and College Student, respectively.

Kent Harries Named ASCE Fellow Professor Kent Harries, FASCE, FACI, FIIFC, PEng, was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) in October, 2019.

The Fellow status, FASCE, signifies members of the organization who have made celebrated contributions to the field and developed creative solutions that have enhanced lives. Fellows make up just three percent of ASCE’s members.

Second Edition of NOCMAT Textbook Published Kent Harries and Pitt CEE alumna Bhavna Sharma, assistant professor at the University of Southern California School of Architecture, have published a significantly expanded second edition of their book, Nonconventional and Vernacular Construction Materials: Characterisation, Properties and Applications.

Recognizing a Career of Service to Generations of Students John Oyler was a professor in the Swanson School’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering for 25 years before retiring in 2018. This year, the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department established the John F. Oyler Fellowship, which will provide full tuition to support a graduate student specializing in structures or solid mechanics.

Oyler was also presented the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania (ESWP)’s Distinguished Service Award this year for his outstanding contributions toward the “improvement of the social, economic and professional status of the Professional Engineer.”

Leonard Casson Selected for Water Environment Federation Blue-Ribbon Panel Leonard Casson, associate professor was invited by the Water Environment Federation to participate in a newly formed Blue-Ribbon panel on wastewater treatment safety during the COVID-19 pandemic. The panel of experts from across industry and academia that will formulate a set of guidelines and recommendations that will ensure the global wastewater treatment community is fully informed of best practices and actions for protecting employees and promoting safe operating procedures in wastewater treatment. continued on next page > > >

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Makerspaces and Mindsets Students at the Pitt Makerspace Bootcamp, led by assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering David Sanchez, took their ideas from a sketch to a finished product over the course of a day – and learned a thing or two about design thinking in the process. The 31 rising sophomore engineering students attended the annual bootcamp that began in 2013 as an entrepreneurship-focused event.

Students Jake Kline Selected as the Inaugural John F. Oyler Fellow

Kaitie DeOre Wins American Bridge Leadership Award

Jake Kline, a University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University undergraduate student, was selected as the first recipient of the John F. Oyler Fellowship. The award will provide full tuition support to a student who is in good academic standing and specializing in structures or solids.

The Pittsburgh Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) awarded the American Bridge Leadership Award to CEE senior Kaitie DeOre. As president of Pitt’s ASCE chapter, she organized the first annual Civil Engineering Day at Pitt. Michael Winiarczyk, senior civil engineering student, received an ASCE Accomplishment Award. He serves as treasurer for Pitt ASCE and was the captain of the 20192020 OVSC Surveying Team.

Pitt Alumna and Alabama Engineer Helping NYC Homeless Fight COVID-19 CEE alumna Renee Corbett (‘16), from Huntsville, Ala., worked with the international aid group Doctors Without Borders in New York City to provide hygiene services and infection control to the homeless population there. Before the global pandemic, Corbett had worked primarily in Africa, providing water and hygiene to people in Ethiopia and Sudan.

Adding a Human Touch to Engineering During his undergraduate studies, Isaiah Spencer-Williams (BSCEE ’19) traveled across the globe, witnessing the impact of engineering in places like Flint, Michigan and South Africa. These experiences left a lasting impression and inspired him to reframe his approach to engineering, which included pursuing poetry and artistic expression alongside his engineering work. Spencer-Williams and a friend founded The I.N.N.A.T.E. Project, which is dedicated to providing a space in which community members, specifically youths and young adults, can network with artists, challenge normalcy, and spark impactful conversations using natural and developed artistic abilities.

Student Team Wins First Place in Annual CAWP Student Estimating Competition Pitt’s student team “The Benedum Builders” placed first in the 4th annual Constructors Association of Western Pennsylvania (CAWP) Student Estimating Competition, held February 6-8, 2020, at the Regional Learning Alliance in Cranberry Township. The competition asked student teams to think like a construction company and bid on a heavy-highway construction project. Benedum Builders members Paul Amicucci, Anthony Gansor, Russell Jacobs, Mason Hill, Patrick Schorr, and Brandon McDermott took home a $1,500 prize for first place. The Brain Storm Troopers, from Pitt at Johnstown, placed second.

PhDs Conferred Fall 2019 Alan Gusa (Advisor: Radisav Vidic) Control of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) in Produced Water by Inorganic Sorbents Spring 2020

Pitt ASCE Chapter Once Again Wins Distinguished Chapter Award and is Ridgway Award Finalist

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he Swanson School of Engineering’s student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) received the organization’s Distinguished Chapter Award for Region II. The chapter is also one of five selected as a finalist for the Robert Ridgway Student Chapter Award, presented annually to the single most outstanding ASCE student chapter nationwide.

“The chapter’s dedication to our profession and our department is truly inspiring,” said Radisav Vidic, professor and department chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “Their accomplishments are a credit to them, our department, the Swanson School and Pitt.”

The Distinguished Chapter Award is based on the chapter’s annual reports from the previous year.

Among the highlights of this year was the chapter’s first Civil Engineering Day, which introduced high school students in the area to civil engineering through hands-on experiences. Students from Pitt ASCE won first place overall at the 2019 Ohio Valley Student Conference, attended the ASCE National Conference in Miami, presented at the Environmental & Water Resources Institute Conference, and sent seven students to the Region II Assembly at Drexel University.

“As president, I could not be prouder of the students that make up this group. Every member should be very honored about what they’ve done and been a part of. They put their heart and soul into what they do, and this award really showcases that determination and drive on a national stage,” said 2019-2020 Pitt ASCE President Kaitie DeOre, who won the 2020 ASCE Bridge Leadership Award. “There were a lot of special moments this year, and I’m just really proud to say that I was a part of it. Being a finalist for the biggest award that a student chapter can win is the best possible way to end my tenure as president of Pitt ASCE; being chosen for this award is every president’s dream.”

The Ridgway Award was named for Robert Ridgway, past president of ASCE, and has been awarded annually since 1963. The Pitt ASCE Student Chapter has been a finalist for this award three times in five years and has received the Distinguished Chapter Award for Region II four times in five years.

“This organization has done an excellent job of enhancing the experience of civil engineering undergraduates at the Swanson School,” said Anthony Iannacchione, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and faculty advisor to the chapter. “Their passion for the field is evident in the events they organize and the way they welcome anyone who wants to be involved.”

Yusuf Akintayo Akinbade (Advisor: Kent Harries) Mechanical and Morphological Characterization of Full-culm Bamboo Hector William Clavijo Sanabria (Advisor: Xu Liang) An Investigation on Interactions Between Plant Physiological-HydrologicalBiogeochemical Processes and Acid Mine Drainage in Coal Refuse Piles Using Optimality Principle Theory John William DeSantis (Advisor: Julie Vandenbossche) Modeling the Development of Joint Faulting for Bonded Concrete Overlays of Asphalt Pavements (BCOA) Yan Wang (Advisor: Leanne Gilbertson) Toward Rational Design of Graphene Nanomaterials: Manipulating Chemical Composition to Identify Governing Properties for Electrochemical and Biological Activities Jing Xu (Advisor: John Brigham) Shape Analysis Based Strategies for Evaluation of Adaptations in In Vivo Right Ventricular Geometry and Mechanics as Effected by Pulmonary Hypertension Summer 2020 Mingzhou Li (Advisor: Luis E Vallejo) Finite Element Analysis of Damage to Highway Embankments Due to Dynamic Subsidence Resulting from Longwall Mining

Fall 2020 | 13

ENGINEERING.PITT.EDU

New Faculty

Lei Fang

Meng Wang

John Brigham

Alessandro Fascetti

Dr. Fang graduated from Colorado State University in 2015 with a BS in environmental engineering.

He earned his PhD in civil and environmental engineering (with a minor in computational and mathematical engineering) in 2020 from Stanford University, where he worked with Prof. Nicholas Ouellette.

Dr. Wang’s research interests lie at the interface of bionanotechnology, microbiology, and material science.

Specifically, his research seeks to (i) design novel bionanomaterials to enable sustainable and efficient water purification, (ii) harness the biochemical potential of microorganisms in bioremediation and resource recovery, and (iii) understand the effects of emerging contaminants on microbial activities in natural and engineered systems.

Meng is currently a postdoctoral scholar in Dr. Shaily Mahendra’s group at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He received his BS (2012) in environmental science from Nanjing University, and MS (2015) and PhD (2018) in environmental engineering from UCLA where he worked on engineering protein nanoparticles for water treatment applications.

John Brigham received a BE from Vanderbilt University and a MS and PhD from Cornell University.

Following his PhD in 2008, he joined the University of Pittsburgh as an assistant professor and was later promoted to associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Bioengineering. In 2016 John joined the Department of Engineering at Durham University in the United Kingdom, where he served as a professor and deputy executive dean until his return to the University of Pittsburgh this fall. Focusing on computational mechanics and inverse problems, Dr. Brigham’s research group is actively involved in a number of diverse projects, including kinematic analysis of the heart for improved diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, novel design concepts and optimal design strategies for smart material morphing structures, and efficient and accurate quantitative nondestructive evaluation algorithms.

Dr. Alessandro Fascetti received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from the Sapienza University of Rome. He obtained his PhD in structural engineering from the same institution. In 2017, he joined the Multiscale Computational Mechanics Laboratory at Vanderbilt University as a postdoctoral research fellow. He served as a faculty member at the University of Waikato (New Zealand) for two years before joining the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Fascetti’s expertise is in physics- and data-based multiscale computational mechanics, and his research team conducts work in the context of advanced infrastructure and digitalization of the urban environment. Recent research projects include the real-time largescale resilience assessment of flood protection systems, advanced aerial remote sensing for infrastructure monitoring and health assessment and HPC applications for the lattice particle modeling of mixed-mode fracture in composite materials.

Dr. Fang is broadly interested in the behavior of complex systems far from equilibrium and applies the physical understanding of complex systems into environmental and human health applications. He is primarily focused on experimental studies but augments with numerical simulations and theoretical modeling. Current projects in his lab include turbulence in two dimensions, Lagrangian coherent structures, swimmers in turbulence, crowd dynamics, and virus transmission via exhaled airflows.

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

engineering.pitt.edu

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In Memoriam: John C. “Jack” Mascaro (1944-2020) From James R. Martin II, U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering Jack Mascaro BSCE ’66 MSCE ’80, one of our outstanding alumni, volunteers, advocates, and benefactors, passed away after a hard-fought battle with illness.

Jack was a creative, caring juggernaut of ideas and inspiration, and his passing leaves an emptiness in our hearts and minds. It was an incredible honor and privilege to work with him during my short tenure as dean thus far, but I know those of you who have a long history with Jack and his family experienced a deep connection and now share a tremendous loss. I hope your memories of his lighthearted spirit, curious intellect, and enthusiasm for our students and programs provide solace and smiles.

his contributions to Pitt, the region, and the profession, and was also honored by the University with the Chancellor’s Medallion. Thanks to his beneficence, the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation and our focus on sustainability will continue his legacy for generations. Most importantly, it was his passion for sustainability, and what he saw as its inexorable link to engineering, that will forever inform our mission to create new knowledge for the benefit of the human condition. He truly was an engineer’s engineer, and we can never thank him and his family enough for his generosity of mind and spirit.

Please join me in expressing our sympathies to the Mascaro Family, and to thank them for Jack’s impact on our students, alumni, and entire Swanson School community.

As one of our Distinguished Alumni, Jack was lauded by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the School for UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH | SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING | CEE NEWS | FALL 2020