Research

We have focused our research efforts into four dominant areas, summarized below. All department affiliated laboratories, centers, and research groups fall in one of more of these categories.
Labs and Centers
Archive of Ph.D. Dissertations

Sustainable Development

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

George Ban-Weiss: Research Group
Burcin Becerik-Gerber: Innovation in Integrated Informatics (i-LAB)
Felipe de Barros
Kelly Sanders: Sanders Sustainable Systems Group (S³)
Constantinos Sioutas: Aerosol Lab
Lucio Soibelman: Innovation in Integrated Informatics (i-LAB)
Costas Synolakis: Tsunami Research Center
Qiming Wang: Materials and Structures Laboratory

Water Quality, Access, and Distribution

About:

One of the great challenges facing the world now is providing an adequate supply of potable water, considering population growth and climate variability.

Faculty:

Amy Childress: Childress Research Group
Felipe de Barros
Jiin-Jen Lee: Foundation for Cross-Connection Control and Hydraulic Research
Daniel McCurry: McCurry Lab
Massoud Pirbazari: Water Quality Research Group
Kelly Sanders: Sanders Sustainable Systems Group (S³)
Adam Smith: Smith Research Group
Qiming Wang: Materials and Structures Laboratory

Disasters and Extreme Events

About:

Both natural (e.g. earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, climate change) and man-made (e.g. terrorist attacks, engineering failures, industrial accidents) disasters encompass the focus here. Research and education in this area includes all aspects of an event, from a fundamental understanding of the physical processes controlling its evolution to the resulting environmental and social reaction.

Faculty:

Bora Gencturk: Structures and Materials Research Laboratory
Erik Johnson
Jiin-Jen Lee: Foundation for Cross-Connection Control and Hydraulic Research
Vincent Lee: Earthquake Engineering - Strong Motion Research Group
Patrick Lynett: Coastal Engineering Group
Sami Masri
Ketan Savla: Research Group
Costas Synolakis: Tsunami Research Center
Mihailo Trifunac: Earthquake Engineering - Strong Motion Research Group
Carter Wellford
Hong Leung Wong: Earthquake Engineering - Strong Motion Research Group

Coupling of Complex Systems

About:

Most natural and engineered systems are known to be complex, defined as systems characterized by their display of patterns of structure or behavior at one level of system organization that are diagnostic of interactions among parts of the system at other levels. Furthermore, individual systems do not exist in a vacuum. Transportation, critical infrastructure, and security, for example, all represent distinguishable complex systems, yet all must be in some way coupled. These couplings can be nonlinear and difficult to quantify. 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.

Faculty:

Burcin Becerik-Gerber: Innovation in Integrated Informatics (i-LAB)
Bora Gencturk: Structures and Materials Research Laboratory
Roger Ghanem
Erik Johnson
Jiin-Jen Lee: Foundation for Cross-Connection Control and Hydraulic Research
Patrick Lynett: Coastal Engineering Group
Sami Masri
Najmedin Meshkati: Research
Ketan Savla: Research Group
Lucio Soibelman: Innovation in Integrated Informatics (i-LAB)
Costas Synolakis: Tsunami Research Center