What Do Civil & Environmental Engineers Do?

Our standard of living depends on our civil infrastructure, a sophisticated system of buildings, bridges, dams, airports, transportation networks, water and power distribution systems, and environmental protection systems.

Civil and environmental engineers are responsible for designing, maintaining and enhancing our civil infrastructure. They help to sustain the living standards and quality of life of the population. Civil engineers are also master builders. They create structures that stand as timeless symbols of our civilization. Environmental engineers identify and design solutions for problems involving the environment. To do so, they have to be broadly educated and technically trained to address a wide spectrum of issues.

Ezgi Cinar

Ezgi Cinar is a first year Civil Engineering Ph.D. student advised by Prof. Patrick Lynett. Her research focuses on understanding the behavior of debris motion and its effects under extreme events like tsunamis and storm surges.

Ezgi was born and raised in Ankara, Turkey. She joined the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in Fall 2018 upon receiving Annenberg PhD Fellowship and is expected to graduate in 2023. She received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Civil Engineering from Middle East Technical University, Turkey. Her M.S. focused on the comparison of 2D and 3D numerical wave tanks with various turbulence models in application to long wave motion and its interaction with structures. During her master's studies, she visited Japan for two months to do further research on tsunamis.

In her free time, Ezgi likes hanging out with her friends, playing video games and listening classic rock.

Sustainable Development

Sustainability in the context of civil engineering targets long-term viability of natural resources and engineered civil systems.

Water Quality, Access, and Distribution

Providing an adequate supply of potable water, considering population growth and climate variability.

Disasters and Extreme Events

All aspects of an event, from a fundamental understanding of the physical processes controlling its evolution to the resulting environmental and social reaction.

Coupling of Complex Systems

Efforts aim to integrate research across the Sonny Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, as well with all outside disciplines that interact with civil systems.