NEW DAYLOR CHAIR IS RESOLVING ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ISSUES WITH RESILIENT ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS
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n August, Professor Bridget Wadzuk, PhD, ’00 CE, began her tenure as the Edward A. Daylor Chair in Civil Engineering. Committed to “resolving environmental justice issues with resilient engineering solutions,” she follows in the footsteps of Professor Robert Traver, PhD, PE, D.WRE, F.EWRI, F.ASCE, ’82 MSCE, who held the position from 2015–2020. A professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering since 2005 and a faculty researcher in the Villanova Center for Resilient Water Systems, Dr. Wadzuk is recognized for advancing novel concepts in stormwater engineering, which has included turning Villanova University’s campus into a world-renowned research and demonstration park. Over the past 15 years, she has secured more than $10 million in external research funding and has authored or co-authored 27 papers. Within the field of stormwater engineering, her work on evapotranspiration has led to the reimagining of stormwater design and she is one of only a handful of researchers incorporating machine learning, artificial intelligence and edge computing into this work.
ENDOWING A VILLANOVA ENGINEERING CHAIR The position of endowed chair professor is a prestigious honor that is coveted by accomplished academic professors who are viewed as academic leaders in an institution such as Villanova. These positions are also important in attracting highly accomplished academics with international stature. Aside from the prestige, the associated endowment gives the chaired professor freedom to pursue creative and independent scholarly research topics that may not yet be ready for extramural funding. Endowment funds may be used for graduate and undergraduate research assistant salaries, equipment and laboratory expenses, conference travel, and supplementary research salary for the chair holder as the principal researcher. All are necessary to conduct the business of modern engineering research. If you have an interest in creating a named endowed chair professor, please contact Cynthia Rutenbar, senior director of Development, College of Engineering at Cynthia.rutenbar@villanova.edu.
Advancing applications in machine learning is one of Dr. Wadzuk’s three areas of focus for her first five years as Daylor Chair. Additional goals include integrating stormwater into food-energy-water nexus solutions and changing the way stormwater engineers look at a hydrograph, which is the most common tool used to explain the flow in or out of a system over time, but one which she believes needs to be remade. A committed teacher-scholar, Dr. Wadzuk also looks forward to bringing these topics and others into the classroom through new interdisciplinary courses. “I will leverage the resources of this chaired position to bring these ideas to fruition,” says Dr. Wadzuk. In addition to supporting undergraduate and graduate students, as well as post-doctoral fellows and Villanova colleagues, she plans to attend more conferences to meet with colleagues worldwide. “Participating in these conferences,” she explains, “will augment publications on these new topic areas, highlight Villanova as a leader in stormwater engineering, and potentially lead to new partnerships and new sources of students.” Inaugurated in 1994, the Edward A. Daylor Chair was first held by Professor G. Lee Christensen, PhD, who retired in 2002. The chair was subsequently held by Professor Ronald Chadderton, PhD, and Dr. Traver, who stepped down in order to provide an opportunity for a mid-career rising faculty member. Of all his accomplishments as Daylor Chair, Dr. Traver is most proud of the research team assembled within VCRWS and the Villanova Urban Stormwater Partnership. “This team has changed the design practices of the profession,” he says. “The changes to our climate are here and the urgency is only increasing, but by combining soils, water, climate and plants, and coupling field research with computer simulation, and now machine learning, our understanding is deepening and solutions to the degradation of our water resources are being discovered.”
