2023 CEE Review

ADAPTATION: CEE-led team strives to better predict and communicate flood risk Researchers are supported with a five-year, $7.5 million grant from the DoD’s Office of Naval Research

Page No. 10

Shaping Resource Flows

Adaptation

Human Habitat Experience

Automation

Data-Driven Innovation

TABLE OF CONTENTS 08 14 04 16 10 HUMAN HABITAT EXPERIENCE

21 STAFF NEWS

SHAPING RESOURCE FLOWS

ADAPTATION

AUTOMATION

DATA-DRIVEN INNOVATION

24 26 32 FACULTY NEWS

STUDENT NEWS

© 2023 Regents of the University of Michigan

ALUMNI NEWS

FROM THE CHAIR I am delighted to introduce this year’s issue of our annual CEE Review. Since assuming the role of Donald Malloure Department Chair of Civil & Environmental Engineering on July 1, 2023, after my 19-month tenure as interim chair, this issue carries special significance for me. I remain steadfast in my commitment to furthering our legacy of innovation and achievement.

Five years ago, our department embarked on a strategic visioning process with the goal of identifying opportunities to elevate our discipline and redefine the profession of Civil & Environmental Engineering. This endeavor resulted in a progressive vision focused on five key areas: Improving Human Habitat Experience, Shaping Resource Flows, Adaptation, Automation and Smart Infrastructure Finance. Our Strategic Vision stands not only as a reflection of our unwavering dedication to serving society but also underscores our unique, people-first engineering approach.

In this edition of the CEE Review, we spotlight our strategic directions and provide an update on the “Smart Infrastructure Finance” direction, which has now evolved into “Data-Driven Innovation.”

The future of civil infrastructure is intrinsically linked to datadriven innovations. With this sharpened focus, we aim to harness the capabilities of sensors, data analytics, machine learning and simulations, thereby introducing groundbreaking methodological and computational paradigms. These advancements will enable us to more effectively design, plan, finance, construct and manage interconnected infrastructure systems, ensuring our future communities remain sustainable, secure, efficient and resilient.

This year, our mission to advance our strategic directions is invigorated by the addition of two faculty members: Sabine Loos

We are grateful for your continued generosity and support of our Civil & Environmental Engineering Chair’s Strategic Discretionary Fund.

This fund is used in a variety of ways and may provide emergency financial support for students, help pay for building renovations and upgrades or support the important work of our faculty. Thank you in advance for your consideration.

and David Kelly. Concurrently, the Center for Risk Assessment Informed Decision Engineering (RAIDE), spearheaded by Seth Guikema and Jim Bagian and recently integrated into our department, emerges as a beacon of interdisciplinary innovation.

The center’s mission is to develop cross-disciplinary tools, techniques and methods to make risk-informed decisions that mitigate or minimize unforeseen or undesirable outcomes. I encourage you to delve into their profiles and aspirations in this issue and share our excitement for the transformative impact they are set to impart to our department and the College.

While we warmly welcome our new members, we bid farewell to two esteemed professors, Avery Demond and Victor Li. Their distinguished tenures at the university, punctuated by numerous awards, speak volumes about their dedication and exceptional contributions. It is with profound respect that we confer upon them the title of professor emeritus. We eagerly await their future endeavors and hope for their continued engagement with our community.

As you navigate through this issue, I am confident you will find inspiration in our pioneering research and the outstanding achievements of our vibrant community. The continued progress of our team fills me with great pride, and I am truly honored to embrace another year of shared excellence with all of you.

Yafeng Yin, PhD

Donald Malloure Department Chair of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Donald Cleveland Collegiate Professor of Engineering

yafeng@umich.edu

To support by check, please use this address: Check payable to: “University of Michigan” Memo line: “Gift to CEE Chair’s Strategic Discretionary Fund” Mail to: University of Michigan College of Engineering 1221 Beal Avenue Suite G264 Ann Arbor, MI 48109

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DEPARTMENT News

2022-23 By the Numbers Research Expenditures in Fiscal Year 2023

43

Faculty Members

$12.5M

186

Years as a Department

109 PhD Students 136

–Since 1837

Master’s Students

5:1 Undergraduate Student to Faculty Ratio

Undergraduate Students

THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

JORDAN B. ACKER, Huntington Woods MICHAEL J. BEHM, Grand Blanc MARK J. BERNSTEIN, Ann Arbor PAUL W. BROWN, Ann Arbor SARAH HUBBARD, Okemos DENISE ILITCH, Bingham Farms RON WEISER, Ann Arbor KATHERINE E. WHITE, Ann Arbor SANTA J. ONO (ex officio)

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DEPARTMENT News

National Rankings – U.S. News and World Report

#4

#10

#2

#5

Environmental Engineering Undergraduate Program

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Program

Environmental Engineering Graduate Program

Civil Engineering Graduate Program

Photo by Brenda Ahearn/Michigan Engineering, Communications & Marketing

RESEARCH News

BEYOND THE PANDEMIC: CEE & PUBLIC HEALTH EXPANSIVE PATHOGEN TRACKING PROMOTES PUBLIC WELFARE Story by Annabel Curran

In 2020, University of Michigan researchers began working on a novel wastewater testing approach that would better detect viral infection patterns in communities and provide critical data to keep the public informed at the height of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Today, that pathogen monitoring method has expanded to new pathogens and is more essential than ever before.

The project, a collaboration between researchers in civil and environmental engineering and public health at Michigan, has been providing information on community COVID-19 levels since 2021, a time when transmission rates and case numbers were at their peak. By identifying and measuring genetic material in the form of RNA from SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, the new form of wastewater testing was able to accurately track and identify the presence of the virus in local communities without relying on numbers from clinical or at-home testing.

Since the COVID-19 pathogen tracking data from this testing method applies to any individual with a home connected to a sewer system, wastewater sampling can serve as an inclusive source of information about COVID-19 in a given community. With this in mind, the researchers sought to optimize wastewater surveillance by comparing its ability to detect the virus in two kinds of samples: the majority liquid influent that enters wastewater treatment facilities, and the settled solids. As they expected, the researchers found the settled solid samples had higher concentrations and better detection of SARS-CoV-2 compared to the liquid versions.

Tracking COVID-19 through wastewater surveillance of RNA quickly gained steam across the country. The process involves isolating the viral RNA from the sewage in wastewater treatment facilities and performing digital droplet PCR — a highly sensitive form of quantitative amplification of genetic material. Through this testing and RNA isolation, researchers can identify and quantify the presence of SARS-COV-2 viral loads. The data generated by 4

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the testing is shared with local public health officials, the University of Michigan’s pandemic response team, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC. At the project’s inception, researchers were able to use the testing method to track future upward trends in COVID-19 infections, even while case numbers were still relatively low. With many mild or asymptomatic cases making the virus difficult to track, developing this approach to pathogen monitoring held the potential for faster identification of case spikes, allowing local officials to act quickly before transmission within communities becomes difficult to contain and hospitalizations overwhelm the local health system.

Although the COVID-19 public health emergency has now been officially declared over by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the virus is still present at varying levels both locally and globally. Researchers have continued testing wastewater to track COVID-19 all while perfecting their testing methods. Now, the wastewater testing and surveillance method can be applied to tracking other harmful pathogens such as mpox, influenza-A, norovirus GII and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

“Methods developed for COVID-19 can be applied to a number of other infectious diseases of public health concern,” said Betsy Foxman, the Hunein F. and Hilda Maassab Professor of Epidemiology and director of the Center for Molecular and Clinical Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases in the School of Public Health. “We are working to apply our methods to monitor adenovirus, polio, rotavirus, Candida auris and antibiotic-resistant bacteria like MRSA.” MRSA, a common staph infection known as a superbug, is seen as a serious global health threat by the CDC, and the recent, ongoing rise in often-drug-resistant Candida auris, a fungal infection, is also of concern to the CDC and healthcare providers.

By looking for genetic code from pathogens, wastewater

RESEARCH News

monitoring can potentially screen for dozens of pathogens at a time. An analysis of a single sample of wastewater can effectively test people across an entire community, offering both anonymity for those infected and a broad sweep of the diseases circulating.

An example of the wastewater sampling data

“We trust the data a lot now, and we think it’s time to show the broader community that it’s here,” said Krista Wigginton, project co-lead and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. “When a new threat comes around, we have the infrastructure ready and can therefore adapt methods to start looking for it, and I think that’s valuable to the public.”

In developing this approach to wastewater testing and pathogen monitoring, researchers established both a new and more reliable method for tracking the spread of harmful pathogens and an efficient manner of sharing that information with local public health officials. The project led to the establishment of the UM Wastewater Monitoring Dashboard, a user-friendly and easily accessible tool that best informs local public health officials on the spread of COVID-19 in their communities. The dashboard provides organism detection levels, trend data and catchment area maps for the five tested areas — Ann Arbor, Flint, Jackson, Tecumseh and Ypsilanti — and the six pathogens currently being tested for by researchers.

Just as the team’s pathogen tracking and wastewater monitoring continues to expand, so does the Wastewater Monitoring Dashboard. Data analysts have worked hard on the site to make accessing critical public health data easier for officials.

“One of our biggest recent advancements has been our interface with the public and the major changes we’ve made to the dashboard,” said project co-lead and Assistant Research Scientist Michelle Ammerman. “Through surveys on our dashboard, we’ve sought public input and feedback from our public health partners and incorporated changes to make user experience and interfacing easier.”

Although the COVID-19 public health emergency is officially at its end, this kind of wastewater testing and pathogen monitoring is more important than ever before. With fewer people choosing to test for and report COVID-19, the data on case numbers can be skewed and inaccurate. Without precise data, public health officials can be woefully uninformed about the spread of COVID-19, leaving them unable to make the decisions that will best protect and support their communities. Tracking the spread of pathogens through wastewater testing circumvents this issue, taking the need for clinical testing and case reporting out of the equation. The same can be said of other harmful pathogens tracked by wastewater testing. Monitoring and reporting mpox, influenza-A, norovirus

GII and RSV also helps to fill gaps in officials’ knowledge and guide public health responses, especially since most people do not seek medical help or clinical testing for these illnesses. This method of disease monitoring and the reporting of the data through the UM Wastewater Monitoring Dashboard help ensure that public health officials can keep an eye on rising levels of pathogens and guide responses — especially at places with high levels of transmissions, like schools or retirement homes — accordingly.

The dashboard encapsulates the goals behind this research and testing method: to provide unbiased research and testing and trustworthy public health resources. The data available on case numbers of COVID-19 and other harmful pathogens derived from clinical testing is inaccurate at best. While those pathogen tracking methods can be misleading, this method is much more representative.

“The wastewater doesn’t depend on people getting tested at clinics. It depends on us taking a sample and measuring it,” said Wigginton. “Wastewater doesn’t lie.”

Looking forward, the team aims to continue to widen the scope of their pathogen tracking, applying their testing methods to other viruses and infections while maintaining transparency in their communication with public health officials and the community.

“One of the big problems with traditional public health is that data can be hidden from the public,” said Ammerman.

“The importance in what we’re doing lies not only in gathering the data but in working to make this data publicly available and interpretable, allowing the public to make better choices.”

Researchers also want to continue to ensure that all members of the research community can benefit from this kind of testing and knowledge, aiming to improve connection within the wastewater-based epidemiology community to better compare data from different locations and ensure a continued ethical approach to the project’s implementation.

“Health care infrastructure is not equal across the United States and varies greatly between urban, suburban and rural communities,” said Ammerman. “It’s very important to continue to implement this not just within the highly populated areas, but rural communities as well, so we can capture data without any filters or biases.”

In sharing their work with the greater Washtenaw County community, the state of Michigan and the United States as a whole, these researchers are improving the safety and awareness of communities in a wide variety of human habitats, from rural to urban and everything in between. Through the utilization of civil and environmental infrastructure and the built environment, those on this project have worked to bridge the gap between engineering and public health, paving the way for a healthier future.

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RESEARCH News

“SELF-DRIVING” WATER SYSTEMS: A Q&A WITH BRANKO KERKEZ Story by Jessica Petras (adapted by CEE)

YOU DON’T HAVE TO LOOK VERY HARD TO FIND WATER PROBLEMS More frequent and intense storms are causing increased flooding, particularly in rural and low-income communities.

Storms can also lead to sewer overflows, washing pollutants into rivers and lakes. Infrastructure, such as dams that were built to control water, can have unintended consequences, disrupting ecosystems and changing migration patterns of fish.

Branko Kerkez, an Arthur F. Thurnau Associate Professor of civil and environmental engineering, and his students at the Digital Water Lab, are tackling these water problems and more with inspiration from autonomous systems that originated in transportation, robotics or other fields. Like a self-driving car, water systems will one day “steer” themselves in real time based on changing conditions.

Recent projects for Kerkez and his team have included the deployment of sensors to make watershed management easier for surrounding communities. In Detroit, where there has historically been high amounts of flooding, Kerkez and his team have deployed sensors with the Sierra Club and Friends of the Rouge — two local community groups. With the support of the Erb Foundation they are exploring how resident-led backyard interventions might help reduce flooding. They have also worked with managers at the Great Lakes Water Authority on the real-time control of different water assets — basins and pumps and gates — in order to build tools for water operators that will reduce sewer overflows and improve water treatment.

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On the Huron River, the team has worked with collaborators on the Huron River Watershed Council to enable smart river basins and to figure out how to support the control of dams and reservoirs using sensors and data. Covering 900 square miles, the Huron River Watershed encompasses various communities, both rural and urban, whose water management strategies are dependent on limited information and can unwittingly have adverse effects on local habitats, water systems and wildlife. In putting out sensors and gathering additional data, Kerkez and his team have worked to create the tools necessary to help communities make better informed decisions about water flows and management.

Kerkez’s team is made up of students from a variety of different academic backgrounds, many with dual degrees in varying technical disciplines ranging from environmental engineering to computer science. This non-traditional lab environment has helped Kerkez and his team take different approaches to their research and projects and develop new perspectives.

Kerkez has shifted his approach to his research by including non-engineering disciplines in his work and drawing on the personal experience and knowledge of the communities his research aims to serve. While their projects remain rooted in fundamental research questions, they now take a more social science-oriented approach to development of those driving questions. In connecting with community members on the ground, the research team has gained new collaborators, perspectives and ideas. By keeping the human component of technology in mind through the research process, Kerkez and his team are better able to prototype, saving time and energy by dedicating their efforts toward producing technology that will be both well-received and used productively.

Guided by fundamental research questions, collaborations with experts in non-engineering fields and a focus on listening

RESEARCH News

Learn more about the Digital Water Lab at U-M

Photo by Robert Coelius/Multimedia Producer, University of Michigan, College of Engineering

to and working with the people they aim to serve, Kerkez’s work exemplifies the Michigan Engineering Human Habitat Experience Strategic Direction. In a Q&A, he shares his approach to his work, and why it matters to him: The people-first engineering framework has three components: excellent engineering fundamentals, convergence of disciplines, and equity-centered values and global worldviews. How do these components show up in your work?

“For a long time, we were doing the work that we thought was important and fun,” said Kerkez. “We made progress on all these cool algorithms — essentially, smart city research that’s built on fundamental engineering. But right before the pandemic, I had a conversation with a few PhD students that were graduating: After validating the tech and showing its potential, what should we do next? Where is the potential to make the biggest impact? The inclination is to take what you have and improve it. But what’s the value of pushing the performance of your control algorithm by 20% when few people are using the original one to begin with? It’s humbling and uncomfortable when a whole room of engineering PhD students tells you that we probably need to understand people more than we need to understand the technology.”

A people-forward approach to engineering can be tricky, Kerkez admits, but necessary to create technology that provides value to a community.

“Sensors and data are inherently useful, most people can get on board with that,” says Kerkez. “But can I take this powerhouse of a technology and actually package it in a way that someone can use day-to-day, and in the midst of all their other responsibilities? It turns out that’s a pretty hard problem to solve.”

Taking a community-oriented and people-first approach has helped to change the ways in which Kerkez and his team tackle

their research, allowing them to better understand a community’s relationship with its surrounding natural environment. “Every one of our projects is still rooted in a fundamental research question about something.” he explains, “but now we start every research project by spending time in the community and talking to residents and water managers before we formulate the research question. This helps us work on solutions that may actually be adopted because they’re solving a real problem for people.”

How do you build connections with the communities you’re trying to serve?

Kerkez attributes much of his teams’ connections with the community down to word of mouth.

“I can trace it back to literally my first week of this job,” he says. “I was walking around trying to figure out where things are on campus, and I was introduced to the county water resource commissioner, Evan Pratt, at a coffee shop. He took me to the library the same day, where this group of residents was meeting to discuss water in their neighborhood. Collaborators like Evan help us see the bigger picture. He even helped us talk about our work in a more meaningful way. People like Evan help us talk about our work, and that’s half the battle sometimes.”

Along with making connections within the community, Kerkez also spends time at local meetings, whether it’s a community college or a regional or statewide meeting of water professionals.

“Our core mission statement for the University says we’re here ‘to serve the people of Michigan and the world,’” says Kerkez.

“When I look at the day-to-day tasks that I do as a researcher, am I fulfilling that mission? Being a part of a big place like this means we can tackle global challenges, but there are cool things to work on in the state and our local communities as well.”

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REVOLUTIONIZING WASTEWATER TREATMENT: A LEAP TOWARD A GREENER PLANET WITH MABR TECHNOLOGY Story by Annabel Curran (adapted by CEE)

WATER IS A CRUCIAL RESOURCE THAT ALL LIFE DEPENDS ON

As global human activities and populations increase, the need for sustainable practices is greater than ever. Interestingly, one of the main players in this field is a process that most people overlook, though they contribute to it daily: wastewater treatment. Critical research led by CEE Professor Glen Daigger is ushering in new improvements in this crucial field, integrating diverse technologies and perspectives to enhance efficiency and conserve energy and resources.

Daigger explains the crux of this progress pivots on a novel concept, the Membrane Aerated Biofilm Reactor (MABR). By incorporating MABR into biological wastewater treatment systems, revolutionary changes in the treatment process are being initiated.

MABR is a technological module that encapsulates hollow fiber membranes — submerged in the treatment tank — that pumps oxygen directly to the bacteria that grow on and treat the constituents in the wastewater.

The use of beneficial bacteria in the wastewater treatment process in this manner is a breakthrough in itself. These microorganisms form an aerobic biofilm on the surface of the oxygen-rich membrane, while their anaerobic counterparts flourish in the tank’s anoxic environment. The MABR system further achieves simultaneous nitrification-denitrification (SND) in a solitary tank, arming the system with a dual edge of being both spatially compact and more energy-efficient compared to conventional treatment systems.

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Historically, energy has been the Achilles’ heel of wastewater treatment, routinely requiring exceptionally high inputs. The advent of the MABR mitigates this issue. As Daigger elaborates, “This groundbreaking technology not only brings down nutrient levels more energy-efficiently, but it also opens the gate for the extraction of a plethora of valuable resources from urban wastewater.”

The MABR’s purpose boils down to distilling essential bioresources and nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus from water. These minerals might seem harmless, but when they exceed tolerable levels they induce stress in aquatic ecosystems, leading to overnutrition, also known as eutrophication. The consequential biological imbalance can trigger a cascade of unfavorable events, such as the death of plant and animal life.

The harmful effects of nutrient pollution have already taken their toll in places like Chesapeake Bay, Florida’s lakes and bays, and even closer to home in western Lake Erie. These water bodies are grappling with destructive outcomes like harmful algal blooms and hypoxia due to the inflow of excessive nutrients. This is where MABR technology heralds hope, offering sustainable answers to counter nutrient pollution while conserving both energy and space.

Daigger’s pioneering work has paved the way for numerous societal benefits, notably in curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

MABR technology severely cuts down the energy necessary for nutrient removal, tremendously reducing the physical footprint as well as carbon emissions linked to wastewater treatment.

Furthermore, MABR is turning the tables by transforming wastewater treatment from a disposal process to a resource generation module. Through efficient carbon capture, the captured

carbon can be lucratively employed in activities from aiding in the sequestering of carbon dioxide to manufacturing fuels.

A further discovery brought to light during this research is the role of bacterial biofilms in MABR wastewater treatment. Daigger and his team identified that monitoring data could indicate the biofilm’s thickness. This novel finding not only aids in maintaining biofilm health but also could facilitate carbon capture, opening new doors for the extraction of this and other resources.

The significance of Daigger’s exhaustive research extends beyond improving the wastewater treatment process. Shrinking water bills, energy conservation, safeguarding water resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions are just some of the benefits that already echo the project’s success. Daigger’s projected vision of the future anticipates this research serving as a stepping stone to even greater progress in this vital field.

“This isn’t just about mitigating climate change,” said Daigger, “This research is reinventing the process of treating wastewater in the most energy-efficient fashion while valuing our resources and reducing costs, to create a greener and more sustainable future.

The ultimate goal is harnessing wastewater as an underutilized resource.”

MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAM AT U-M ADVANCES LOW CARBON BUILDING RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE A multidisciplinary team from the University of Michigan conducted a Low Carbon Building R&D Initiative workshop. The team is composed of faculty from several colleges and stakeholders from related institutions and industry. Their goal is to develop the next generation of integrated low carbon building solutions through a strategic vision that addresses research opportunities.

The all-day workshop, co-facilitated by Russell Loveridge from NCCR Digital Fabrication and Tsz Yan Ng from the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, aimed to assemble interested faculty, co-develop shared vision and priorities, assess U-M’s current research strengths, identify gaps and formulate external industry partnerships. They planned to advance the idea of using oncampus living labs as a foundational part of research infrastructure.

Key faculty on the initiative include Taubman faculty Tsz Yan Ng, Kathy Velikov and CEE faculty Brian Ellis and Evgueni Filipov, backed by the VPRRAD Catalyst Grant Program. They focused on assembling research domains and building out capacity and industry partnerships to position U-M at the forefront of low-carbon building innovation.

Aiming to eliminate direct greenhouse gas emissions from campus by 2040, the U-M President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality recommended adopting Cross-unit teams discuss low carbon initiatives at a June 15 workshop. this aggressive goal. As buildings contribute mainly to U-M’s carbon emissions, the faculty created a “living lab” concept which will be instrumental in achieving zero-emissions. They plan to accelerate building renovations, clean energy transition and active engagement of the University community.

The living labs model will demonstrate full-scale functional testbeds providing performance metrics for advancing research and reducing adoption risks like costs, policy issues and labor shortages. Sustainable solutions will be addressed across the entire construction ecosystem, with a focus on health and social equity impacts.

The workshop was broken into three main events: construction innovation, circular economy and retrofits & operations. Each segment aimed to ping important research questions and contributing partnerships which could be addressed through the living lab.

Construction innovation addressed the reduction of waste and the increase in efficiency and productivity. Retrofit and operations focused on energy efficiency of existing buildings, a challenging task due to limited knowledge about existing buildings’ systems, leading to more expensive retrofits. Lastly, circular economy dealt with the waste issue post-construction, emphasizing downcycling and upcycling of waste instead of landfilling.

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RESEARCH News

CEE-LED TEAM RECEIVES $7.5M TO PREDICT, COMMUNICATE FLOOD RISK Story by Makenzie Schlessman

ENGINEERS, ATMOSPHERIC SCIENTISTS, PSYCHOLOGISTS AND ANTHROPOLOGISTS TEAM UP TO DEVELOP BETTER FLOOD PREDICTIONS AND ENSURE DECISION-MAKERS CAN UNDERSTAND THEM

To reduce the human and economic costs of extreme flooding events, which are on the rise due to climate change, a team led by the University of Michigan is bringing together researchers in science, technology and the humanities for better flood risk predictions and better decision-making in response to those risks.

They are supported with a five-year, $7.5 million grant from the Office of Naval Research, through the Department of Defense Multidisciplinary University Research Initiatives (MURI) Program.

The devastating floods that ripped through the northeast United States are among the most recent in a long string of severe flooding events occurring worldwide, which make it plain that better flood predictions and safety plans are needed. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, flooding causes $8 billion in losses on average annually in the U.S. alone.

“Climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme flooding—and particularly in urban areas. In the past four decades, 99% of U.S. counties were impacted by flooding, and since 2000, there have been 1,782 flood-related fatalities,” said Valeriy Ivanov, co-principal investigator and U-M professor of civil and environmental engineering.

The team seeks to provide better answers to crucial questions that arise when communities are at imminent risk of flood. What are the chances the flood occurs and how bad could it be? Where might flooding occur in the future, particularly as the climate continues to change? What information do leaders need to make decisions about evacuation? The goal of their project is to develop a suite of methods and case studies that ultimately will help leaders decide what actions need to be taken when a flood may be coming.

“We are looking at the full pipeline, from predictions and 10

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models to the psyche of decision-makers where it will affect society,” said Xun Huan, co-principal investigator and U-M assistant professor of mechanical engineering.

The team plans to collect data from two areas, one located in Michigan and the other in Texas, and run many computer simulations to determine the possibility and impacts of floods in the current climate—and under different scenarios of future climate. In addition to improving the accuracy of their simulations, they hope to find strategies, solutions and actions that can mitigate the impact of floods, minimizing the harm.

One key concern is measuring and communicating the uncertainties in their predictions. Similar to weather forecasts that provide a percentage chance of rain on a given day, the team is designing a model that can provide information on the likelihood of the flood hazard and which communities may be impacted. This is of paramount importance for flood resilience and preparedness as well as supporting real-time decision-making immediately before, during and after flood events.

“Uncertainty plays an important role in decision-making, where one needs to consider what scenarios might play out and how likely,” Huan said. “The importance of these considerations are further elevated when decisions have high consequences, for example when deciding whether to evacuate when faced with potential major flooding that may cause property damage and endanger people’s lives.”

Another part of the project focuses on human decision-makers and what matters to them when making difficult choices. What results from the data and modeling are important for them to know? How can they be expressed in a useful way? How do priorities change from community to community?

To answer these questions, engineers and atmospheric scientists will team up with psychologists and anthropologists, who bring expertise not just in human decision-making but also in societal and cultural effects. With more robust predictions and best practices for communicating about them, the team will then develop casebooks to help present data to leaders when their constituencies face flood risks.

RESEARCH News

Simulation results for the 1000-year flood that occurred in Nashville, TN in 2010. The graphic shows how the simulation can provide flood prediction with varying levels of detail, at the scale of the watershed (left panel), to the city sector level (middle) and finally the neighborhood level—showing flooding levels at a resolution of a few meters (right). Image credit: J. Kim, E. Rakhmatulina, F. Sedlar, V. Ivanov, HYDROWIT Group, University of Michigan

Participating investigators on the project include Richard Gonzalez, the Amos N. Tversky Collegiate Professor of Psychology and Statistics at U-M, and Nikola Banovic, U-M assistant professor of computer science and engineering.

The project includes researchers from Boise State University and the University of Illinois, as well as stakeholders from Department

of Defense facilities in the Detroit area. Project ideas initially started with seed funding from the Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery and Engineering, which enabled researchers from multiple disciplines to come together and focus on computational aspects of the flooding problem.

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RESEARCH News

INTRODUCING THE CENTER FOR RISK ANALYSIS INFORMED DECISION ENGINEERING TO CEE Story by Mason Hinawi

The University of Michigan Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering is gaining a new and exciting addition: The Center for Risk Analysis Informed Decision Engineering (RAIDE). This new center aims to provide the tools, techniques and methods that lead to risk-informed decisions to prevent or minimize the occurrence of unexpected or undesired outcomes.

It aims to identify, assess and mitigate risks across a wide range of fields through timely, clear and appropriate communication.

The Co-Directors of RAIDE are Professors Seth Guikema and Jim Bagian, each contributing expertise from diverse backgrounds. Seth Guikema, coming from a background in Civil & Environmental Engineering and Operations Research, focuses on risk and resilience analysis for natural hazards impacting communities, including hurricanes, earthquakes, winter storms and more. His work extends to assessing community resilience and access to critical services like food, childcare and education before, during and after a hazard event.

Jim Bagian, on the other hand, started his career as an astronaut, served on both Space Shuttle mishap investigations and served on NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel for over a decade. He then moved into patient safety, establishing the National Center for Patient Safety at the VA in 1999. He emphasizes the need for a systems approach in healthcare safety, deriving a balance between patients’ perceived and actual needs and how to meet them effectively without injury.

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RAIDE aims to amalgamate the concepts of risk in various disciplines, such as autonomous vehicles, dam and levee safety, water pollution, structural reliability and others. The goal is not just to silo emergency management in civil engineering, but to engineer a broad systems approach involving various disciplines outside of the college of engineering in the university such as the medical school, nursing school, law school and school of public policy school, among others. A significant part of this aim is to bring together interdisciplinary teams to take a systems-based approach to these kinds of risk and resilience problems and lead proposals and research in this area.

Both Guikema and Bagian want to build more experiential learning for students at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

RAIDE’s goal is to enhance students’ practical understanding of the concept of “risk” and provide students with the ability to successfully manage these risks to achieve the greatest likelihood of a successful outcome.

The duo hopes that RAIDE will prepare students for real-world experiences where they will be critically analyzing risks and making decisions accordingly. As RAIDE moves to its new home at the CEE department, it is evident that risk analysis is essential to many aspects of civil & environmental engineering, and the department looks forward to its contributions.

RESEARCH News

BLAZING A TRAIL TO PREDICT AND PREVENT WILDFIRE DAMAGE Story by Mason Hinawi

In a time when wildfires are exponentially increasing in frequency and severity, a research group led by Associate Prof. Ann Jeffers from U-M CEE is pioneering work that aims to reduce their disastrous impact on communities. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the team is focusing on computational models designed to predict structural ignition under wildfire conditions, specifically the raining ember showers, known as firebrands, that ignite them.

Their work is targeted at understanding the dual mechanisms that can cause buildings to burn. “The first is direct radiation from the fire, and the second is the firebrands landing on the structure or finding their way inside,” explains Jeffers. It’s a phenomenon that until now has not been accurately replicated by existing predictive models.

The team’s additional researchers, Associate Prof. Seymour Spence and Assistant Prof. Estéfan Garcia, are applying their expertise to create a two-pronged approach toward studying this impactful disaster mechanic. Jeffers describes their processes.

“Spence is leveraging his experience with wind-driven rain models, applying them to the simulations of firebrand showers in wildfire conditions by considering firebrands as particles in a multi-phase computational fluid dynamics simulation model. Simultaneously, the complex physical interactions like heat transfer occurring when firebrands impinge on structures are being studied using a Discrete Element Method (DEM) under the guidance of Estéfan Garcia.”

Garcia says, “The challenge with modeling the impingement of firebrands is that they are not a single continuous material. Their collective impact on structures is a result of millions of distinct impact events, and the firebrands themselves are all disconnected from each other. They can flow all around a structure and impact it from all different directions. Numerically we can bring order to

this chaos by modeling the firebrands as individual particles using the same physics principles we teach our first- and second-year undergraduates, and the heavy lifting of the millions of calculations is done with high-performance computing clusters.”

In addition to greater scientific understanding, the project aims to have practical applications for public safety and policy making.

“The research results could determine which structures or elements of structures are most vulnerable to firebrand attack, thereby informing better construction materials and methods, policy decisions and land management strategies,” outlines Jeffers. “The ultimate goal is to reduce losses in catastrophic fire events, increase community resilience and potentially inspire the construction of wildfire-resistant communities.”

Transferring research ideals into practice does not come without its challenges. “The high fidelity of the computational simulation models requires advanced training to use them effectively, adding another hurdle to public acceptance and implementation,” acknowledges Jeffers. “Overcoming these obstacles will involve translating the research into accessible, tangible tools, possibly influencing risk analysis and policy frameworks in the future.”

The project commenced in January 2023 and will run through December 2025. Jeffers says, “The hopes for the future are high; although we won’t solve all the problems posed by wildfires during this research cycle, the findings and created tools aim to bolster a scientific community addressing this problem’s critical gaps and fostering any subsequent work in this understudied field.”

The pressing need for climate change adaptation and the increasing threat of wildfires provide an urgent, impactful backdrop to this crucial research. The heartbreaking aftermath wildfires leave in their wake underscores the importance of CEE’s objective to mitigate future fire devastation.

Civil & Environmental Engineering | cee.engin.umich.edu

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RESEARCH News

HARNESSING ENERGY TO CREATE SELF-POWERED AUTOMATED TECHNOLOGY Story by Michele Santillan (adapted by CEE)

GOAL IS TO USE NATURE’S ENERGY AGAINST ITSELF TO PROTECT INFRASTRUCTURE Hurricane force winds whipping against buildings. Extreme rains deluging swollen rivers and streams. Isolated coastal communities searching for safe, potable drinking water. U-M CEE researchers are studying ways to harness nature’s power and turn it upon itself, innovating new ways to address society’s needs through automation.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $1.2 million grant to CEE Associate Professors Jeff Scruggs and Branko Kerkez, and two other co-PIs— U-M professor Heath Hofmann, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and James Van de Ven, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota.

“Many infrastructures, such as buildings, bridges, and water systems, can be made more responsive and resilient against extreme events like earthquakes and storms, through the use of actuators, sensors and embedded intelligence,” Prof. Scruggs said. “With urban watersheds, for example, control valves and gates enable water to be redirected, in real-time, to reduce the likelihood of floods. In buildings and bridges, we can incorporate various types of force actuators to reduce their deformations during earthquakes and high winds. There are a lot of other examples, too.”

These types of technologies are cyber-physical systems, which combine software and decision processes with physical systems.

This technology is at the heart of the intelligent systems program in CEE. “It’s all about the idea of embedding sensors, actuators, and decision processes into infrastructures to make them more resilient, more responsive and more capable of adapting to circumstances,” Prof. Scruggs said.

Automation inherently needs to be powered. “Protecting infrastructure against the effects of extreme events is ultimately 14

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about reliability. If your technology is dependent on the same external power grid that is under assault from nature’s forces, this leaves you vulnerable to cascading failures,” Prof. Scruggs said.

Because many infrastructures are remote and are not close to a utility to plug-in, there is a need to deliver power to remote areas and the need for additional investment required to make that happen. “There’s the possibility of using batteries, but those need to be periodically recharged or replaced, and need to be accessible,” he said. The possibility exists to scavenge energy from the surrounding environment, such as through solar power. However, solar power may be inadequate for a number of reasons. The amount of energy needed to affect the control can be prohibitively high. Also, in many situations, the sensing and control technologies are deeply embedded in the infrastructure. For example, control systems installed internally in buildings are not applications where solar Students deploy a sensor in the field. power would be practical.

In some circumstances, extreme events can impart dynamic loads, such as water currents, wind forces, earthquake accelerations and ocean waves. “If we can figure out how to capture the energy injected into infrastructures by these loads, we can harness this energy to counter the adverse effects of the loads,” Prof. Scruggs said. For example, if researchers can figure out how to capture and store the energy driven into the building by the wind or an earthquake, they can use this energy against itself to reduce the likelihood of damage.

“Branko and I are working on a similar idea applied to watersheds, which is completely new— nobody has really talked about this before,” Prof. Scruggs added. “Energy harvested from

RESEARCH News

flow through valves and gates would be used to power the actuation of those same valves and gates, along with sensors and wireless communications to coordinate the flow of water through the systems. This type of technology is what we’re calling self-powered technology. Once you set it up, it should operate in perpetuity and replenish itself using energy harvested from the disturbances to which it is subjected. It achieves a kind of energy-autonomy that will offer a significant path to lead to the adoption of these technologies.”

The NSF grant will fund the investigation of three types of selfpowered infrastructure: 1. Self-powered control systems for buildings 2. Self-powered watersheds 3. Ocean wave energy powered desalination systems Submerged flaps are available commercially, which are mounted to the ocean floor, for the purposes of wave-driven desalination.

When the wave passes, the flap oscillates. The flap is connected to pumps that use the motion of the flap to drive pressurized sea water to shore, where it goes through a reverse osmosis filter and is desalinated. You can build a system that doesn’t require electricity at all; it can be an entirely passive mechanical system. But you can increase the output if you actively control the pump to regulate energy absorbed from the waves. “This is what I am working on with Prof. Van de Ven, from the University of Minnesota,” Prof.

Scruggs said. “We are developing a technology that captures and stores wave energy, and uses it to power the control system, so that the average rate of pumped water is optimized. It’s a technology that will have application, for example, in isolated coastal communities that need drinking water and are far from heavily-populated areas.”

The NSF grant is for a three-year project, and each of the three areas of research will have experimental testbeds. The intent is not to develop full-scale prototypes, but rather to demonstrate and validate new concepts. The building will be a miniaturized experiment, and the desalination study will be built in a lab with a simulated flap.

“We’re addressing a part of cyber-physical systems and autonomy that’s often taken for granted,” Prof. Scruggs said. “How to deliver energy efficiently, and where that needed energy comes from. It’s not a development grant— it’s an idea grant. Hopefully it will lead to further research, aimed at getting more devices out into the field. With Branko’s part, though, it would be most valuable to deploy in the field. Our hope is to get this done later in the project.”

The watershed aspect of the project does include an additional component. “Branko thinks that we can get more energy out of the flow than we need to power the pumps, sensors and control intelligence,” Prof. Scruggs said. “He wants to use the excess power to facilitate water treatment by using electrolysis. That aspect is an extra benefit of the technology. There’s something intellectually satisfying about this challenge,” he said. “There’s a fundamental tradeoff between the secondary objective of capturing as much energy as you can, and the primary objectives, i.e., controlling a building, generating drinkable water and preventing flooding. In all of the applications we are looking at, the primary and secondary objectives compete with each other. You want to get the best performance possible, without running out of energy. That tradeoff is what makes the problem interesting.”

“For the type of study we need to do, the infrastructure models are pretty well-established, and the kind of thing we teach in our classes. The thing that’s trickier is the modeling of the control technologies— electronics and storage systems. I’ve been investigating this modeling aspect since my doctoral dissertation.

There is not a strong appreciation for what is possible. That’s why the experimentation in this area is so important. No one has ever experimentally demonstrated self-powered control in the contexts we’re talking about. From the point of view of gaining acceptance that this is viable, experimentation is key to building that kind of credibility. Experiments are good at convincing people— putting it all together and showing it works establishes credibility.”

Civil & Environmental Engineering | cee.engin.umich.edu

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RESEARCH News

HARNESSING DATA-DRIVEN INNOVATIONS IN ENHANCED NATURAL DISASTER MODELING Story by Mason Hinawi

In times when natural catastrophes – like hurricanes and earthquakes – are increasingly frequent, conventional computational models can struggle to simulate their impact on infrastructure. CEE Associate Prof. Seymour Spence is working on a project that will illuminate emerging technological solutions to provide faster, more efficient computational models for natural disaster response.

Spence’s work centers around the development of computational models that predict how infrastructure reacts to high-intensity loadings produced by events like hurricanes and earthquakes. These models aim to simulate potential damage, losses and possible building collapse, in response to future extreme loading scenarios. The end goal is to present urban developers, investors and decision-makers with suites of metrics that can aid in identifying the innovative infrastructure solutions of tomorrow.

Spence underlines: “We want to take our engineering solutions and turn them into probabilistic metrics related to answering questions, such as for how long is a structure going to be out of service subsequent to an extreme event and what are my expected repair costs and casualties?”

However, developing these models poses significant computational challenges with the need to propagate uncertainty, which results in the computationally cumbersome process of running numerical models thousands of times to characterize the variable impacts on the infrastructure of future natural hazards.

To overcome these challenges, Spence’s team has turned to using AI and data-driven approaches in the form of deep learning, which provides a means to learn the dynamic behavior of complex computational models from data, helping understand and anticipate the occurrence of extreme conditions in the future.

“The advantage is that once trained, these approaches are around four orders of magnitude faster than directly running high fidelity computational models,” explains Spence, indicating that the AI-enabled simulations can now run thousands of samples in just minutes.

The data incorporated in the computational algorithms are synthetic. Using historical earthquake data and experimental records of hurricane-related wind loads, Spence and his team generate synthetic data to predict the response of buildings to 16

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extreme events, which they then feed into their machine-learning algorithms for training. This essentially works as a digital rehearsal for the infrastructure system, illuminating potential outcomes for a range of future natural disasters.

The potential applications of these advances stretch across the gamut of civil engineering, from designing marine infrastructures to military vehicles. In Spence’s case, they enable what’s known as ‘performance-based engineering.’ This increasingly popular approach involves explicitly modeling the performance of structures in extreme events, thus creating greater capacity against such events while simultaneously reducing building costs. Performancebased engineering allows for the improvement of infrastructure performance without increasing its cost, promising a future of efficient and resilient infrastructure systems.

Furthermore, it permits engineers enormous flexibility in discovering designs that achieve enhanced performance objectives while maintaining economic viability. Spence adds, “There is huge interest right now from large structural engineering consulting firms to use performance-based engineering… it provides a means to not only gain a competitive advantage but also to rationally engineer a more resilient built environment.”

Spence’s team recently experienced a groundbreaking moment when they combined ‘reduced order modeling’ with ‘deep learning’ to create a non-intrusive solution: “We first perform the decomposition and therefore represent the system in a very small latent space defined by what we call principal components. We then use AI to learn the input/output relationship within the space of the principal components. We actually learn the latent space without having to define a physical reduced model. We learn it from input-output data directly projected from the physical space.”

This combination of AI and advanced computational models presents a promising new frontier in the realm of predicting and mitigating the impacts of natural disasters – promising not only to protect human lives and property, but also to increase profitability and competitiveness for businesses and investors.

With this innovative approach, Spence and his team are ultimately contributing to the creation of safer, more sustainable urban environments by utilizing data-driven innovations.

Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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RESEARCH News

SIMULATED TERRIBLE DRIVERS CUT THE TIME AND COST OF AV TESTING

BY A FACTOR OF ONE THOUSAND Story by Jim Lynch (adapted by CEE)

The push toward truly autonomous vehicles has been hindered by the cost and time associated with safety testing. Now, a new system developed at the University of Michigan shows that realworld traffic data can help artificial intelligence train safer and more efficient autonomous vehicles, reducing testing miles and verifying autonomous vehicle technology’s capability to save lives and reduce crashes.

In a simulated environment, vehicles trained using artificial intelligence perform perilous maneuvers, forcing the AV to make decisions that are needed to better train the vehicles. To repeatedly encounter those kinds of situations for data collection, real-world test vehicles need to drive for hundreds of millions to hundreds of billions of miles.

“The safety critical events — the accidents, or the near misses — are very rare in the real world, and oftentimes AVs have difficulty handling them,” said Henry Liu, U-M Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of both Mcity and the Center for Connected and Automated Transportation.

U-M researchers are tackling this problem by learning from real-world traffic data that contains rare, safety-critical events.

Testing conducted on test tracks mimicking both urban and highway driving showed that AI-trained virtual vehicles can significantly accelerate the testing process.

“With this data-driven approach, we’re able to better evaluate autonomous vehicle performance at a much faster pace,” said Liu. “And, if we understand their performance deficiency, then we can respond to those deficiencies by designing a new approach to train the autonomous vehicle to better cope with those types of situations that it’s struggling with. We use this real-world databuilding model and then we try to accelerate the evaluation of the 18

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training further.”

U-M’s team used a training approach for background vehicles that strips away non-safety-critical information from the driving data used in the simulation. To train these vehicles, the team works to condense the data that they have collected on these safetycritical situations that occur in the real world. Then, by entering that condensed, safety-critical data into the simulation, these autonomous vehicles will face those high-risk driving scenarios with more frequency, allowing the vehicle to develop the ability to make judgments based on its perceived location, speed and other surrounding vehicles. Essentially, this data-oriented testing method eliminates from the simulation long spans when other drivers and pedestrians behave in responsible, expected ways, but preserves dangerous moments that demand action, such as another driver running a red light.

“With this project, we rely on two sets of data: vehicle-based data and infrastructure-based data,” said Liu. “Once we collect this raw imagery data and video data, we process that data into vehicle trajectories. Then, from that vehicle trajectory, we use a conflict detection module to highlight the potential hazards between vehicles in terms of safety-critical situations. Some of these situations will be accidents, some of them will be near-miss conflicts. Using that data, we can evaluate the system performance of autonomous vehicles.”

By using only safety-critical data to train the neural networks that make maneuver decisions, test vehicles can encounter more of those rare events in a shorter amount of time, reducing testing costs.

“Dense reinforcement learning will unlock the potential of AI for validating the intelligence of safety-critical autonomous systems such as AVs, medical robotics and aerospace systems,” said Shuo Feng, Assistant Professor in the Department of Automation at

RESEARCH News

Photo: Brenda Ahearn/University of Michigan, College of Engineering, Communications and Marketing

Tsinghua University and former assistant research scientist at the U-M Transportation Research Institute. “It also opens the door for accelerated training of safety-critical autonomous systems by leveraging AI-based testing agents, which may create a symbiotic relationship between testing and training, accelerating both fields.”

Testing for this project was conducted at Mcity, while supporting real-world datasets are collected from smart intersections in Ann Arbor, with more intersections to be equipped in the future. Each intersection is fitted with privacy-preserving sensors to capture and categorize each road user, identifying its location, speed and direction. Launched in 2015, Mcity was the world’s first purposebuilt testing environment for connected and autonomous vehicles.

With new support from the National Science Foundation, outside researchers will soon be able to run remote, mixed-reality tests using both the simulation and physical test track.

In utilizing this safety-critical data to better train autonomous vehicles in modeled traffic flow, researchers’ primary goal is to help consumers feel confident in an autonomous vehicle’s ability to perform safely in a naturalistic driving environment. By training AVs to succeed in realistic simulations and demonstrating their safety to both potential buyers along with AV regulatory bodies, researchers and testers are working to make future deployment of autonomous vehicles possible.

“The number one potential application of this data-oriented testing method is the acceleration of the deployment of autonomous vehicles,” said Liu. “Right now, there’s no commercial autonomous vehicle available on the market, and that’s mostly because of their safety performance. The data-driven approach is, I think, really the way to go to help train these autonomous vehicles to be better drivers and be able to handle these critical situations better than

the human driver. If we can make that possible, then it becomes feasible for these autonomous vehicles to be deployed. Otherwise, it’s hard for them to be a commercial option.”

Participants in this research have been working to make the deployment of autonomous vehicles possible. Liu and others have been working with the US Department of Transportation over the past few years to test and evaluate autonomous vehicle safety, particularly through their Michigan Mobility Collaborative Project.

The project aims to deploy a fleet of autonomous vehicles in the City of Detroit to help elderly drivers with their mobility. Those deployed vehicles will first go through the group’s data-driven AV testing procedure, the Mcity Autonomous Vehicle Safety Assessment Program, in order to assess the safety performance of autonomous vehicles before they are deployed on public roads.

“Right now, there’s no consensus as to how autonomous vehicles should be evaluated and tested before they’re deployed,” said Liu. “Every autonomous vehicle developer has their own testing methodology and there’s no mandatory evaluation standard or protocol yet. Based on our research and the data-driven methodology we developed, we hope to provide a blueprint for the future regulation.”

In collecting and applying this real-world, safety-critical data to the autonomous vehicle testing process, Liu and his team have opened doors for the future of innovation and the deployment of autonomous vehicles. As they improve their data-collection, simulations, design testing and safety protocols, the team continues to work to make the possibility of autonomous vehicle deployment a reality.

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CEE’S CONTINUED COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION CEE’s DEI Committee provides resources and opportunities for knowledge-sharing and growth for faculty, staff and students.

Here is a summary of the past year’s activities: Mentoring CEE is excited to continue the graduate peer mentoring program this academic year. First launching in 2021, the program aims to provide students with an opportunity to learn from the experiences of their peers while building connections within the CEE department. The program continues to grow each year, building more and more positive and educational connections between students — last year, 35 participants were matched to a mentor or mentorship group. Program highlights from last year include the Career Pathways Alumni Panel and the GSAC student/faculty networking lunch.

DEI Certificate Since the beginning of its pilot program in 2022, the DEI Professional Development Certificate has continued to foster DEI skill building and an overall knowledge and understanding of DEI principles that can be applied to probe or illustrate the intersection of DEI and CEE. Modeled after the DEI PD Certificate at Rackham Graduate School, CEE’s program provides flexibility and is customized for all roles within CEE to include civil and environmental engineering-specific components, such as environmental and infrastructural justice. CEE encourages all who are interested to lead by example and participate in the CEE DEI PD Certificate and seize the opportunity to bring a greater understanding of DEI into both their personal and professional lives. The program’s first two beta testers completed their certificate this past spring.

Early Career Research Seminar Series This year, CEE is happy to introduce the Early Career Research Seminar Series. This seminar series seeks to highlight the work of graduate students and postdocs who are underrepresented in their field and dedicated to promoting diversity, equity and inclusion through their work in civil and environmental engineering. Attendees will have the opportunity to hear about novel research and the speakers’ unique professional journeys.

CEE has selected four speakers for this academic year: Elizabeth Volpe, Jonathan Boualavong, William Hughes and Toby

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Civil & Environmental Engineering | cee.engin.umich.edu

Nelson. With research focused on topics ranging from retention and inclusion of women in the engineering workforce to the exacerbation of water insecurity by natural disasters in the US and Puerto Rico, these four presenters have a wealth of information to share with the CEE community.

DEI Database In universities all around the world, civil and environmental engineering professionals are looking to expand on their approaches to engineering education, seeking to add social context to the learning environment. With the DEI Database, CEE is looking to lead the way. The database features engineering projects and information on infrastructure-related policies, illustrating the intersection of DEI and engineering. Accessible to academic institutions both across the United States and internationally, the DEI Database serves as a resource for those educators who are looking to incorporate DEI into their engineering curriculum. A collaborative project, users can contribute new cases to the 35 that CEE has already featured to date. CEE’s DEI committee has edited the entries thus far and continues to provide direction and ideas on new case topics for the future. In familiarizing educators with these projects and policies, CEE’s DEI Database will help to spark classroom conversation, leading the way toward a more inclusive educational future.

A screenshot of the DEItabase homepage. Visit deitabase.engin.umich.edu.

STAFF News

STAFF AWARDS Stories by Kari Bigelow

Kate Kusiak Galvin Receives CoE Staff Excellence Award Senior Project Manager Kate Kusiak Galvin received the College of Engineering (CoE) Staff Excellence Award. To be considered for this award, a staff member must be nominated and receive six letters in support of the nomination from other department members.

CEE Professor Branko Kerkez nominated Kusiak Galvin for the award and cited how she has been instrumental in managing sensor deployments and how she has done an excellent job of mentoring students. In the summer of 2022, Kate oversaw a massive deployment of stormwater sensors across the state, working with local stakeholders to permit, scope and deploy water level sensors that now underpin decision-making related to flooding and water quality. Simply put, we could not have accomplished this without her effort and leadership.

The nomination form and letters in support of Kusiak Galvin cited her passion for mentoring and her dedication to the CoE’s People-First Engineering mission and the CEE mission of Engineers in Service to Society. Congratulations again to Kate Kusiak Galvin on receiving this honor!

Senior Project Manager Kate Kusiak Galvin

Joyce Kennedy and Jan Pantolin Receive CoE Staff Incentive Program Award Honors

Senior Administrative Assistant Joyce Kennedy and Structures Lab Manager Jan Pantolin

CEE Senior Administrative Assistant Joyce Kennedy and Structures Lab Manager Jan Pantolin received the 2022 Staff Incentive Awards. Joyce was nominated because she “embraces the ideas of others and respects diversity of opinions during team meetings and SIC meetings.” On the other hand, Jan was nominated because “he partners well with other U-M departments such as Construction Services, Plant Operations, Property Disposition & Asset Management” and “he values the comments of others and is never disrespectful if he disagrees.”

Congratulations to CEE Staff Excellence Award Recipient Tabby Rohn CEE honored Tabby Rohn, Senior Research Administrator, with the 2023 CEE Staff Excellence Award. Research Administrator Manager Stephanie Ford noted that Tabby has “proven to be an excellent team member and collaborator with staff, faculty and students.” Recently, Tabby’s hard work was essential to the coordination of communication among the sponsor, faculty member and her team. As Stephanie said, “I am very proud of Tabby and the hard work she gives to CEE.” The department is proud of her as well.

Research Administrator Senior Tabitha Rohn Civil & Environmental Engineering | cee.engin.umich.edu

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STAFF News

NEW STAFF Ava Armour

Student Services Assistant Ava joins the Student Services Team where she assists in scheduling, event planning, recruiting, admissions and assisting faculty, staff and prospective and current students. She comes to CEE from Student Accessibility and Accommodation Services, where she served as the Lead Testing Assistant at the Testing Accommodation Centers.

Ava is passionate about disability accessibility/inclusion. Ava is proud to be the Lead Facilitator of Disability Culture at U-M. In her free time, Ava plays French horn in various community bands, as well as wheelchair sports (basketball/tennis). Ava loves to spend time with friends, family and her two cats.

Tyler Brand

Research Lab Specialist Tyler has joined the Wigginton & Eisenberg lab groups. His main tasks include the preparation and extraction of viral RNA from field samples and the screening of these samples for SARS-CoV-2, Norovirus, Influenza and Mpox with the use of digital droplet PCR detection systems. He joined CEE from a local life science establishment where he was employed as a biological scientist specializing in ELISA assay development and field sample testing. He carries a deep passion for the interconnection of science, nature and humanity and is enthusiastic about his new role as a Research Lab Specialist that intersects with these passions. Tyler enjoys spending time in nature through backpacking, cycling and other outdoor activities in his personal time.

Jason Brummett

Senior Graduate Coordinator

Jason joins the Student Services Team where he provides general administrative and programmatic support to the graduate programs and is responsible for general program administration, recruitment and admissions, records and enrollment, advising and curricular issues and financial aid. He comes to CEE from Rackham Graduate School, where he served as a student records specialist. In his free time, Jason plays the clarinet with multiple community bands. He also enjoys film photography, reading and spending time with family, friends and his cat and dog.

Ahmard Clay

Research Lab Specialist Ahmard is a full-time research technician who supports different aspects of work in the Wigginton and Eisenberg Labs to quantify SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater. His role is lab-based and focused on extracting and concentrating field-collected samples and then testing those samples. Ahmard enjoys running, cooking and fishing.

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STAFF News

Mason Hinawi

Marketing Communications Specialist Mason helps to make printed and digital marketing materials promoting the mission of the CEE community. He maintains the CEE website, manages social media, coordinates media coverage, takes photographs and writes news Senior Undergraduate Coordinator stories highlighting research and events in the department. He came from the U-M Ross School of Business where he was a BBA that focused his studies on marketing. He enjoys playing tennis and swimming in his free time.

Jordan Marshall DEI Program Coordinator Jordan (she/her) joins the CEE Community as the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Program Coordinator. In her role, Jordan works toward the advancement of DEI within the department, specifically through the integration of the College of Engineering’s DEI 2.0 Strategic Plan. She works collaboratively with the CEE DEI Committee Chair to lead in the planning, implementation, and evaluation initiatives in relation to DEI and its connection to students, faculty, and staff within CEE. She would also like to give a warm shoutout to the CEE DEI Committee members, who generously put so much time and effort into bringing our DEI ideas and projects to life. Jordan is an alumna of the University of Iowa, where she obtained her Bachelor of Social Work and Certificate in Critical Cultural Competence. She then made her way to Ann Arbor, where she became an alumna of the University of Michigan upon obtaining her Master of Social Work, with a Community Change focus. Jordan is excited to be part of CEE and to help contribute to building up the amazing community here.

Lynn Shock

Senior Undergraduate Coordinator As a member of Student Services, Lynn’s responsibilities include supporting faculty, staff and students across a variety of projects. She gathers information for faculty on different initiatives and assists students during their course selection process. She also oversees programs related to records and enrollment and works to resolve any issues that students encounter. Additionally, she is responsible for responding to inquiries from prospective and current students, as well as faculty and staff, about majors and minors in CEE, as well as Supplemental Studies Programs in Sustainable Engineering.

She works with student enrollment and assists with obtaining permission for students to enroll in courses. In her free time, she loves to relax up north and enjoy the beach and campfires with family and friends.

Vanessa Slack

Associate Research Lab Specialist Vanessa works in a laboratory that monitors for pathogens, such as SARS-CoV-2 and Norovirus, in samples collected from wastewater treatment plants in southeast Michigan. She is developing methods to identify and monitor other microorganisms in wastewater using ddPCR. In her spare time she likes to travel, knit and read books.

Civil & Environmental Engineering | cee.engin.umich.edu

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FACULTY News

FACULTY HONORS Aline Cotel

Glen Daigger

2022-23 Crosby Faculty Grant

Water Environment Federation Eddy Medal

Evgueni Filipov

Ann Jeffers

2023 ASCE Engineering Mechanics Institute Leonardo da Vinci Award

Society of Fire Protection Engineers Foundation Board of Governors

Vineet Kamat

SangHyun Lee

ASCE Construction Institute’s 2023 John O. Bickel Award

Rackham Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award

National Academy of Construction (NAC) Member

Henry Liu CEE Departmental Faculty Award

President’s Service Award from ISA RC-39

Carol Menassa

Radoslaw Michalowski

ASCE Construction Institute’s 2023 John O. Bickel Award

Life Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers

Lutgarde Raskin

Steve Skerlos

2023 Simon W. Freese Environmental Engineering Award

2023 Rexford E. Hall Innovation Award

Sherif El-Tawil

Krista Wigginton

2023 Raymond C. Reese Research Prize Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award

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Sabine Loos

Civil & Environmental Engineering | cee.engin.umich.edu

Miller Faculty Scholar

FACULTY News

PLEASE WELCOME CEE’S NEWEST FACULTY

Stories by Annabel Curran (adapted by CEE)

This year, CEE welcomed two new faculty members whose varied experiences and research interests will help continue to actualize our Strategic Directions plan. We are pleased to introduce our new faculty members:

DAVID KELLY

David Kelly brings to the CEE his 25 years of experience in the construction industry, spanning a diverse range of projects from commercial construction to the tech sector. Throughout his career, he has served in various positions including technical management and executive roles— sharpening his skills on both the business and technical sides of the field.

One significant initiative that Kelly will be instrumental in is the Construction Management and Sustainability Fellows program. Through a generous gift from the Dan and Sheryl Tishman Family Foundation, the Tishman Construction Management Program (TCMP) within the Civil & Environmental Engineering department is set to launch this program this year. Selected fellows will engage in four pivotal experiences, namely, a sustainability-themed internship, an international trip, an external ambassadorship and a sustainability conference. Kelly will be facilitating the program, working closely with the rest of the TCMP faculty for its effective implementation. More details will be released soon.

His research interests intersect organizational structure, project performance and technology use, aligning with CEE’s Strategic Direction of Human Habitat Experience. He will be teaching multiple construction management courses in addition to supporting the CEE Department’s new MEng degree in Smart Infrastructure Finance by teaching CEE 504: Engineering Economics and Finance. Kelly is enthusiastic about using his substantial professional experience to assist students in applying classroom learning to real-world scenarios, thereby facilitating a deeper understanding of the industry’s intricate workings.

SABINE LOOS

Assistant Professor Sabine Loos officially joined CEE in person this year after working with the the U.S Geological Survey and Natural Hazards Center at University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on the development of disaster information that centers the human experience, applying geospatial modeling, risk analysis and user-centered design techniques to develop tools that inform effective and equitable disaster risk reduction and recovery. Her work best aligns with CEE’s Strategic Directions of Human Habitat Experience and Adaptation. She will be starting up Actionable Information for Disasters and Development (AIDD) Labs at CEE, which will focus on developing disaster information tools both domestically and internationally with other researchers in the social, information, and natural sciences that. She looks forward to introducing students in CEE to broader human-centered and disaster concepts in her classes and in her lab. Professor Loos completed her PhD in Civil Engineering in 2021, working with the Stanford Urban Resilience Initiative at Stanford University and the Disaster Analytics for Society Lab at Nanyang Technological University. She received her MS in CEE from Stanford University in 2018 and her BS in Civil Engineering from Ohio State University in 2016.

Civil & Environmental Engineering | cee.engin.umich.edu

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STUDENT News

STUDENT HONORS

September 2022 - August 2023

Srinivasan Arunachalam Civil Eng. PhD

Francis Baek

David Burby

Avery Carlson

Aymeric Destree

SEl-ASCE Fellowship

Towner Graduate Award

Pelham Scholar

Best Paper Award

Water Environment Federation Eddy Medal

Pelham Scholar

Rackham Predoctoral Award

Gabriel Draughon

Katherine Harrison

Huanqi He

Ethan Hiss

Zachary Jerome

Rackham Merit Fellowship

Rackham Predoctoral Award

Water Environment Federation Eddy Medal

Pelham Scholar

2023 CUTC Student of the Year

Kaylin Jones

Anna Kilts

Yeon Sam Kim

Sterling Knight

Richard Lee

Rackham Merit Fellowship

Pelham Scholar

Richard D. Woods Award

Pelham Scholar

Rackham Merit Fellowship

Civil Eng. PhD

Envi. Eng. PhD

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Civil Eng. PhD

Envi. Eng. PhD

Envi. Eng. MSE

Civil Eng. MSE

Envi. Eng. PhD

Civil Eng. PhD

Envi. Eng. PhD

Con. Eng. & Mgt. MSE

Envi. Eng. MSE

Civil Eng. MSE

Civil Eng. PhD

Civil Eng. PhD

STUDENT News

Zhenyu Ma

Joseph Majchrzak

Julien Malherbe

Jose Marquez

Brooke Mason

ISNTP Best Paper Award

Pelham Scholar

Pelham Scholar

Pelham Scholar

Rackham Merit Fellowship

Somin Park

Mason Parris

Civil Eng. PhD

Undergraduate

Ries Plescher

Ben Rosenblad Civil Eng. PhD

Envi. Eng. PhD

Barbour Scholarship Recipient

2023 NCAA Wrestling Championship

Distinguished Academic Achievement Award

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

Richard F. and Eleanor A. Towner Prize for Outstanding GSIs

Ellen Thompson

Zhongyuan Wo

Liuyun Xu

Carston Yaw

Military Federal Engineer of the Year Award

Towner Graduate Award

NSF Student Poster Competition at IMECE 2022

2023 CERRA Student Recognition Award

Pelham Scholar

Keoni Young

Wen Zhou

National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship

Barbour Scholarship Recipient

Envi. Eng. PhD

Con. Eng. & Mgt. MEng

Envi. Eng. MSE

Undergraduate

2023 Dan Hodge Trophy

Frank Sysko Civil Eng. MSE

Envi. Eng. PhD

Envi. Eng. PhD

Civil Eng. PhD

Structural Eng. MEng

Civil Eng. PhD

Envi. Eng. PhD

Alyssa Schubert

Civil Eng. MSE

Civil Eng. PhD

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STUDENT News

STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS

American Society of Civil Engineers

Our association hosted a series of 23 weekly speaker information sessions where we invited corporate representatives, professors and graduate students to speak on topics such as recruitment, civil engineering skills and research. Furthermore, the CEE Fall Career Fair was successfully conducted in collaboration with MiTSO and the ECRC. The department also conducted various social events, one of which included attending a Michigan Basketball game. For the first time in several years, our association organized an in-person trip to Chicago. The trip involved taking approximately 50 students to Chicago for a weekend to visit two notable sites and attend a banquet with alumni. In the future, our association aims to expand our membership and participation within ASCE and plans to offer continuous support to CEE students throughout the year through social and service events, educational and career opportunities and peer mentorship.

Michigan Transportation Student Organization (MiTSO) The Michigan Transportation Student Organization (MiTSO) experienced a successful academic year, conducting 18 events that engaged approximately 100 students. These events encompassed regular lunch-and-learns, a noteworthy career panel and several technical tours.

MiTSO also took the initiative to fund numerous students who attended conferences for their academic and professional growth and who participated in student competitions continuously throughout the year. A proud moment ensued when our Transportation Technology Tournament team emerged as winners of the 2022 tournament. Building on that success, the team has already advanced to the finals for 2023. These collective efforts led MiTSO to secure the esteemed 2023 ITE Great Lakes District Student Chapter Momentum Award.

Looking ahead, we aspire to maintain our tradition of organizing a diverse selection of events, with a prominent focus on the engagement of undergraduate students from various disciplines to foster a shared interest in the interdisciplinary field of transportation.

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Civil & Environmental Engineering | cee.engin.umich.edu

Michigan Concrete Canoe Team (MCCT)

@umichconcretecanoe @MConcreteCanoe

Every year, the team at MCCT undertakes the task of designing and constructing a concrete canoe that can sail. This year, our project culminated in a 70s-themed “Boogie Boat,” a vibrant red canoe embellished with a floral pattern that weighed around 300 pounds. In terms of competitive participation, our team entered the ASCE Concrete Canoe competition and traveled to Detroit to participate in the Eastern Great Lakes Conference held at Wayne State University. Competing against 13 skilled teams, we achieved an overall position of third place. We also won first place in the technical presentation, placed second in the technical paper category and received third place for paddling. Team building and community lie at the core of MCCT’s values. To foster these, we organized team events comprising paddling socials, trivia rounds, cookouts, movie nights, a presentation night and collaborative events with the Steel Bridge Team. Looking ahead to the next year, our focus is geared towards team growth and diversity through the recruitment of younger team members and an increased emphasis on aesthetic elements to boost performance levels at our upcoming Regional Competition.

Graduate Environmental Engineering Network of Professionals, Educators and Students (GrEENPEAS) The Graduate Environmental Engineering Network of Professionals, Educators, and Students (GrEENPEAS) had an active year. Our activities included hosting eight events titled Free Bagel Fridays, providing coffee for 11 separate seminars and organizing our annual CEE 5K event at the Arboretum.

Free Bagel Fridays were especially popular, attracting substantial participation of between 40 to 50 attendees, facilitating the formation of numerous new connections. While our 5K event witnessed a slightly lesser turnout compared to the previous year, owing to inclement weather, we look forward to organizing two 5K events in the Fall and Spring of the forthcoming year. We also aspire to arrange Environmental Engineering socials with seminar speakers in the Spring of the coming academic year.

Chi Epsilon During the 2022-23 academic year, Chi Epsilon broadened its network by welcoming 18 novel members into its community. We successfully hosted eight speaker events throughout the academic year, each focusing on an array of topics from zero-emission passive buildings and eclipses to the vital nature of interdisciplinary communication. Our members were actively involved in volunteering activities across both the Fall and Winter semesters, contributing positively to the local community of Ann Arbor. In the Fall, we took part in mulch spreading and storage transition at the Leslie Science and Nature Center. During the Winter months, we offered our assistance to the Natural Area Preservation situated in Ann Arbor. At the end of both semesters, we conducted formal initiation ceremonies for new and existing members, thereby strengthening our connections with the CEE staff further. Notably, we were honored to host Dr. Anjuli Jain Figueroa, a distinguished U-M CEE alumna, who shared insights into her non-traditional journey toward the Department of Energy. As we set our sights on the upcoming year, we endeavor to expand our inclusive and productive community by welcoming and mentoring new members. Our team remains steadfast in upholding our foundational pillars of scholarship, character, practicality and sociability to the highest regard.

Michigan Steel Bridge Team This year, our team competed at the regional event held at Wayne State University during which we secured the second position. This achievement enabled us to represent our University at the National Steel Bridge Competition in San Diego, where we claimed the 21st spot. For us, the primary anticipation for this year was to focus on restructuring and building. Contrary to our expectations, we managed to surpass them by fostering a strong team for the academic year 2023-24. Recognizing the importance of having a self-sustaining team and fostering a beneficial ecosystem for our members, we also actively engaged in intramural sports in the Fall. This coordination allowed us to promote the formation of relationships between the newer and more experienced members of our team. Alongside fostering internal relations, we prioritized strengthening connections with other teams within the Wilson Center, including our sister team, Concrete Canoe. This initiative enabled the cultivation of a robust community within the CEE department that included members from various academic fields. We organized inter-team social events, supported each other through participation in respective competitions and exchanged assistance and advice in manufacturing preparation for competing.

Civil & Environmental Engineering | cee.engin.umich.edu

29

STUDENT News

RECENT GRADS Photo: Brenda Ahearn/Michigan Engineering, Communications & Marketing

UNDERGRADUATES Zubaeer Akhtar — Civil Engineering BSE William Ammerman — Civil Engineering BSE Sydney Anderson — Civil Engineering BSE Haimiti Atila — Civil Engineering BSE Alec Berg — Civil Engineering BSE Abigail Boger — Environmental Engineering BSE Megan Brown — Civil Engineering BSE Sydney Brown — Environmental Engineering BSE David Burby — Civil Engineering BSE Scott Carlin — Environmental Engineering BSE Anthony Colton — Civil Engineering BSE Lily Craighead — Civil Engineering BSE Preston Dahlen — Environmental Engineering BSE Ayush Deb — Civil Engineering BSE Brian Delgado — Civil Engineering BSE Ezekel de Manuel — Civil Engineering BSE Jakob Disbrow — Civil Engineering BSE Phuc Do — Civil Engineering BSE Eric Dubbert — Civil Engineering BSE Natalie Endres — Civil Engineering BSE Dylan Finkbeiner — Civil Engineering BSE Claire Gallagher — Environmental Engineering BSE Lauren Grande — Civil Engineering BSE Aiden Greenberg — Civil Engineering BSE Shane Guenther — Civil Engineering BSE Christopher Gushee — Civil Engineering BSE Jacob Harrison — Environmental Engineering BSE Rebecca Heaman — Environmental Engineering BSE Jared Hensley — Civil Engineering BSE Barbara Hernandez Alvarado — Civil Engineering BSE Ethan Hiss — Civil Engineering BSE Jordon Horton — Environmental Engineering BSE Akshay Jalluri — Civil Engineering BSE Kyle Jaspers — Civil Engineering BSE Thomas Jenkins — Civil Engineering BSE Emma Johnson — Civil Engineering BSE Anna Kilts — Environmental Engineering BSE Gina Kittleson — Civil Engineering BSE Sterling Knight — Environmental Engineering BSE Nika Korolyova — Environmental Engineering BSE Alex Kovacs — Civil Engineering BSE Maria Kuenzer — Environmental Engineering BSE 30

Civil & Environmental Engineering | cee.engin.umich.edu

Augustine Lau — Civil Engineering BSE William Lewan Jr. — Environmental Engineering BSE Emily Lopez — Environmental Engineering BSE Jakob Loynes — Civil Engineering BSE Reece Lynch — Environmental Engineering BSE Elizabeth Maczynski — Civil Engineering BSE Julien Malherbe — Environmental Engineering BSE Sydney Mark — Environmental Engineering BSE Juliana Marks — Environmental Engineering BSE Kirill Mojeluk — Civil Engineering BSE Joel Mojica — Civil Engineering BSE Carter Neering — Civil Engineering BSE Marion Ni — Environmental Engineering BSE Mark Norten — Civil Engineering BSE Rosalia Otaduy-Ramirez — Environmental Engineering BSE Elizabeth Owen — Civil Engineering BSE Mason Parris — Civil Engineering BSE Rachel Pastori — Environmental Engineering BSE Isabella Pedraza — Environmental Engineering BSE Patrick Pek — Civil Engineering BSE Joseph Peterson — Environmental Engineering BSE Ries Plescher — Civil Engineering BSE Bozhidara Prokopieva — Civil Engineering BSE Leah Riutta — Civil Engineering BSE Julia Schachinger — Environmental Engineering BSE Joshua Schweihofer — Civil Engineering BSE Ishani Shah — Environmental Engineering BSE Jenna Sherwin — Civil Engineering BSE Claire Smith — Civil Engineering BSE Tyson Suggs — Environmental Engineering BSE Alexander Vandeweghe — Environmental Engineering BSE Pauline Wang — Civil Engineering BSE Anne Watza — Civil Engineering BSE Leah Webber — Civil Engineering BSE Courtney Wilson — Civil Engineering BSE Vanessa Woolley — Environmental Engineering BSE Yushi Yasuda — Civil Engineering BSE Carston Yaw — Civil Engineering BSE Edison Zhu — Civil Engineering BSE Nina Zlataric — Civil Engineering BSE

STUDENT News

GRADUATES Mojtaba Abdolmaleki — Civil Engineering PhD Kidus Admassu — Civil Engineering PhD Abdullah Alsalmi — Civil Engineering MSE Donovan Awrow — Civil Engineering MSE Sohini Baddam — Civil Engineering MSE Bryon Banman — Environmental Engineering MSE William Birch Jr. — Civil Engineering MSE Joseph Blum — Civil Engineering MSE Kelsey Boldiszar — Civil Engineering MSE Isabel Caballero — Environmental Engineering MSE Melanie Campozano — Civil Engineering MSE Avery Carlson — Environmental Engineering PhD Zihao Cui — Environmental Engineering MSE Marjorie Dean — Civil Engineering MSE Min Deng — Civil Engineering PhD Katherine Dowdell — Environmental Engineering PhD Christian Flores Carreras — Civil Engineering PhD Emilia Giralt — Environmental Engineering MSE Andrew Hager — Civil Engineering MSE Jennifer Hansen — Civil Engineering MSE Xianchen Hao — Civil Engineering MSE Donte Harris — Civil Engineering MSE Huanqi He — Environmental Engineering PhD Michael Heinrich — Civil Engineering MSE Jillian Hesler — Environmental Engineering MSE Brittany Hicks — Environmental Engineering MSE Christian Hitt — Environmental Engineering MSE Sicong Hong — Civil Engineering MSE Mengjun Hou — Civil Engineering PhD Sze Yan How — Civil Engineering MSE Wei-Hsiu Hu — Civil Engineering PhD Shijia Huang — Civil Engineering MSE Chenyu Ji — Structural Engineering MEng Soojung Lee — Environmental Engineering MSE Sijia Li — Construction Eng & Mgt MSE Ziheng Liang — Environmental Engineering MSE Connor Ligeikis — Civil Engineering PhD Jiawei Liu — Environmental Engineering MSE Shijiao Luo — Civil Engineering MSE Brooke Mason — Civil Engineering PhD Thomas McKenzie — Civil Engineering MSE Kirill Mojeluk — Civil Engineering MSE Jacob Nurre — Construction Eng & Mgt MEng

David Opland — Civil Engineering MSE Samuel Orta — Environmental Engineering MSE Sage Paris — Environmental Engineering MSE Leah Pifer — Environmental Engineering MSE Daniela Pitzzu — Environmental Engineering MSE Sion Pizzi — Civil Engineering MSE Alexandra Pollack — Civil Engineering MSE Jonathan Putnam — Civil Engineering MSE Tarrik Quneibi — Environmental Engineering MSE Vishwas Ramachandra — Civil Engineering MSE Maria Redoutey — Civil Engineering PhD Ariel Roy — Civil Engineering MSE Alyssa Schubert — Environmental Engineering PhD Xin Shen — Civil Engineering MSE Callie Singer — Civil Engineering MSE Delaney Snead — Environmental Engineering MSE Renata Starostka — Environmental Engineering MSE Hongji Su — Environmental Engineering MSE Frank Sysko — Construction Eng & Mgt MEng Boqi Tian — Civil Engineering MSE Yao Tong — Construction Eng & Mgt MEng Matthew Vedrin — Environmental Engineering PhD Andrea Ventola — Civil Engineering PhD Tanmay Vora — Civil Engineering MSE Yiyang Wang — Civil Engineering PhD Xiao Xiao Wen — Civil Engineering MSE Gabe Wingert — Structural Engineering MEng Zhongyuan Wo — Civil Engineering PhD Savannah Wujastyk — Environmental Engineering MSE Ahmad Yaafar — Construction Eng & Mgt MEng Xiao Yu — Construction Eng & Mgt MSE Minsen Yuan — Civil Engineering MSE Mackenzie Zabel — Civil Engineering MSE Grace Zalubas — Civil Engineering MSE Zhaoming Zeng — Civil Engineering MSE Saiyu Zhang — Civil Engineering MSE Yiqun Zhang — Civil Engineering MSE Yuguo Zhong — Civil Engineering PhD Wenbo Zhou — Civil Engineering PhD Wen Zhou — Civil Engineering PhD Kechen Zhu — Civil Engineering MSE Yifan Zhu — Civil Engineering MSE

Photo: Brenda Ahearn/Michigan Engineering, Communications & Marketing

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ALUMNI News

HOW ALUMNI CAN STAY INVOLVED IN CEE DEDICATE YOUR TIME & TALENT

Share your experience and knowledge with the next generation of engineers as a mentor or a featured speaker to student groups, courses and recruiting panels.

Volunteer your time with CEE student groups who are pursuing their love of engineering outside of the classroom.

GIVE BACK

Consider targeting your philanthropy directly to CEE in advancing the pillars of excellence through education, research and developing engineers as positive contributors to society.

STAY CONNECTED & INFORMED Keep an eye on your inbox for our quarterly newsletter that will continue to keep you updated on events and opportunities throughout CEE.

LEARN MORE

Visit the CEE Alumni page at: https://cee.engin.umich.edu/about/alumni/ or scan the QR code to learn more about Alumni Opportunities Contact us directly @ cee-alumni@umich.edu

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Civil & Environmental Engineering | cee.engin.umich.edu

ALUMNI News

MEET THE CEEFA BOARD The purpose of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Friends Association (CEEFA) is to promote a close working relationship between CEE alumni / friends and the CEE department, to serve in an advisory capacity to the department and to cooperate with the University in its service to the public.

Larry Brinker Jr. President and CEO of Brinker

Dr. Neeraj Buch Dean of Undergraduate Education at RIT

Peter Cavagnaro Director, Water Resources Recovery Solutions (WRSS)

Larry Brinker, Jr. is the CEO and President of Brinker, a group of family-owned and operated commercial construction and service companies, involved in over several billions of dollars in construction projects, which plays a critical role in the transformation and revitalization of Detroit.

Dr. Bush served in many leadership roles during his 20 years at Michigan State University and is currently the dean of undergraduate education and associate provost at Rochester Institute of Technology.

Peter Cavagnaro retired from a 50-year engineering career and he currently provides engineering services to consulting engineering firms, municipal clients and he volunteers for the Michigan Water Environment Association. He also volunteers his time and effort for CEE 402 Professional Issues & Design, a senior design course that includes multidisciplinary team design experience.

Tom Cox Principle, Fulcrum Asset Advisors

Bruce Dorfman Principle, Thompson Dorfman Partners

Maddy Fairley-Wax Project Engineer, Jacobs Engineering

Tom Cox is the Founder and Managing Principal of Fulcrum Asset Advisors specializing in commercial office and industrial investments. He had a previous executive role at Jones Lang LaSalle managing significant corporate transactions.

Bruce Dorfman co-founded Thompson | Dorfman Partners, a developer of urban multi-family projects in 1999. He is also a cofounder of Education Housing Partners, Inc. (EHP), a California non-profit, public-benefit corporation that focuses exclusively on the development of workforce housing for public school districts and agencies.

Fairley-Wax is a water resources engineer focusing on various projects including the planning and design of large-diameter drinking water pipelines, sewer odor & corrosion control and wastewater treatment plant process design.

Dr. Domenico Grasso Chancellor of U-M Dearborn

Terry McDonnell Assoc. Principle Klein & Hoffman

Kim Newsome Project Execution Supervisor, Exxon Mobil

Terry McDonnell specializes in structural glass engineering and brings his expertise with an understanding of modern building industry advancements.

Kim Newsome works for ExxonMobil in Global Projects. She has supported energy projects across all of ExxonMobil’s business lines (Upstream, Downstream, and Chemicals).

In her current role, she leverages her breadth of project management experience to provide career development counseling to a portfolio of over 600 employees worldwide.

Grasso is the sixth U-M Dearborn chancellor, also serving as a professor and an executive officer. He previously was a Provost of the University of Delaware and Dean of Engineering at the University of Vermont.

He leads multidisciplinary project teams to deliver cutting-edge solutions on many building types, including commercial offices, education, hospitality, health care, sports and entertainment, transportation and more.

She is part of the Lead and Copper Rule Strategy Team and a core team member for research and development of the Microbial Hydrolysis Process.

Lynn Stephens Environmental Engineer, Brown & Caldwell

Pat Wingate Vice President of Engineering, OHM Advisors

Lynn Stephens serves as a Principal Engineer at Brown and Caldwell, focusing on climate resiliency and water systems. She serves as BC’s Pacific Northwest One Water Leader and she is also BC’s Client Service Manager for the Water Research Foundation. Active in water research and AWWA, Lynn uses her expertise to assist communities with water resources problems.

Engineering for Orchard, Hiltz & McCliment, Inc. (OHM Advisors), a fullservice architectural, engineering and planning firm with 18 offices. He is responsible for the technical direction, business growth and client management for all transportation engineering, construction administration and surveying services.

Civil & Environmental Engineering | cee.engin.umich.edu

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ALUMNI News

CEEFA PRESIDENT’S LETTER Dear CEE Alumni, Students and Friends, On behalf of the CEEFA Board of Directors, I hope this note finds you well and you have enjoyed this past summer and are looking forward to the excitement of a new fall semester at U-M. During autumn change is all around us and this is also true for the CEE department and the CEEFA Board of Directors. This past spring we saw the departure of several directors, including past presidents Tarolyn Buckles and Paul Ajegba, along with directors Andrea Hayden and Steve Frenette. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all for their service, especially the leadership of Paul and Tarolyn. Their ability to juggle multiple issues, while being very focused and engaged with the CEE Department, has been a huge benefit for all of us. Personally, Paul’s and Tarolyn’s leadership has been a great example for myself, first as a new board member in 2021 and now stepping into the role of CEEFA president. This fall we also welcome new board members, Professor Neeraj Buch, Peter Cavagnaro, Maddy Fairley-Wax and Terry McDonnell. I know they all are eager to engage with the CEE Department and the rest of the Board as we work together to help tackle a wide range of current issues. Finally, of significance and celebration for the CEE Department, is the appointment of Yafeng Yin to Department Chair. Previously, Yafeng served as interim chair for 18 months and provided stability and leadership during a challenging transition. I am excited to continue to work with Yafeng as we strive to position and strengthen the CEE Department as Leaders and Best.

In our various professions related to CEE, collaboration continues to be critical. In particular, connections through collaboration across various disciplines are crucial to solve evolving problems. These connections continue to be formed between areas of study that didn’t connect directly in the past. This approach needs to be coupled with promoting inclusive, diverse input and making sure we’re hearing from a broad range of stakeholders on the different issues, problems and viewpoints we need to work with to be successful. Civil and Environmental Engineers continue to strive to improve how we are developing and modifying the built environment. New challenges continue to emerge as well. Whether

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Civil & Environmental Engineering | cee.engin.umich.edu

it’s wildfires in Canada or Maui, severe storms in Michigan or coastal impacts and erosion across the U.S., we are encountering more environmental challenges. Many of these, such as flooding, emerging contaminants or the need for more energy, challenge our approaches and cause us to continue to re-examine and redefine what resiliency should look like in our infrastructure. These challenges, along with the broad technological advances to virtually every industry, profession and business sector, are redefining how we work and how we teach the engineers of the future.

While the Board will continue to provide guidance and feedback to the department, we desire to provide increasing transparency and accessibility of our CEEFA Board interactions to not only the students, but the alumni as well. It is my hope that all of you feel welcomed and connected to both the Department and the CEEFA board. We will continue to explore opportunities to engage our alumni. Of course, we are always looking forward to welcoming any alumni back to campus for a visit if your travels bring you back to Ann Arbor! I am confident that all CEE alumni, along with the CEE Department and our current and future students will continue to accept the challenges that face our profession as we advance to tackle integrating technology, resiliency, sustainability, and inclusiveness issues for society. This is truly a huge duty to live up to, I am excited to continue to be a part of this responsibility!

Go Blue!

Pat Wingate, P.E.

-Vice President - OHM Advisors -CEEFA Board President

ALUMNI News

CEE Alumni of the Year: Paul Ajegba Story by Mason Hinawi

Paul C. Ajegba, former CEEFA Board president and former Director of the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), was commended with the 2023 Alumni Merit Award. The Alumni Merit Award is a prestigious distinction that honors U-M CEE graduates who personify the motto “leaders and best.” The recipients of this award exhibit exceptional dedication toward enriching their communities and enhancing the quality of life for others. This accolade applauds their significant efforts and the influential projects they’ve undertaken following their graduation.

Ajegba culminated a three-decade-long, illustrious career with the MDOT, serving his final role as the Director. Before stepping into this significant position, he held important roles as the Metro Region Engineer and the University Region Engineer. In the University Region, his seven-year stint was marked by overseeing his team’s involvement in the planning, design and construction of several significant projects including the widely acclaimed US-23 Flex Route. This project was nominated for America’s Transportation Award and secured a place among the top twelve national finalists.

Coupled with an impressive array of professional feats, Ajegba is also revered for his contributions to key initiatives like the I-94 rehabilitation project in Ann Arbor/Jackson, the I-96/ US-23 interchange and the significant I-75 freeway project. His incredible dedication to these initiatives has continuously driven improvements in Michigan’s transportation system.

A graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Prairie View A&M University, Ajegba further advanced his educational portfolio with a master’s degree in Construction Engineering from the University of Michigan. His extraordinary expertise in the field has earned him the status of a licensed professional engineer in the State of Michigan and in 2022 he was inducted into the National Academy of Construction Hall of Fame.

Outside his outstanding professional journey, Ajegba is an active member of COMTO (Conference of Minority Transportation Officials). His impactful contributions extend to his service on

Paul C. Ajegba Former Director of the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) & Former CEEFA Board President a variety of boards, including AASHTO, ITS America, M-City, University of Michigan, College of Engineering, the Engineering Society of Detroit and the Mackinac Bridge Authority.

Paul C. Ajegba’s career, marked by a consistent commitment to excellence and innovative developments in transportation engineering, fittingly earned him the 2023 Alumni Merit Award.

Civil & Environmental Engineering | cee.engin.umich.edu

35

RETIREMENT News

Congratulations to Our Newly Retired CEE Faculty

Stories by Annabel Curran (adapted by CEE)

CEE would like to extend its deepest appreciation and gratitude on behalf of the department for the significant contributions and dedication of two recently retired faculty members: Avery Demond and Victor Li. We want to thank Professor Avery Demond for her over 33 years of hard work at The University of Michigan, her various contributions to the College and her dedication to the students of the department. Professor Demond supported the department through the many positions she held in it, such as Undergraduate Program Chair, Interim Graduate Program Chair, Chair of the Curriculum Committee, Chair of the Assessment Committee and member of the Executive Committee. She also developed three courses, one at the advanced graduate level and two at the undergraduate level, including the precursor to CEE 265 Sustainable Engineering Principles. Most notably, Professor Demond was instrumental in the creation of the BSE in Environmental Engineering degree, serving as its Program Advisor for seven years.

In this capacity, she received an Award of Excellence in recognition for exemplary service in support of students during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Professor Demond has also been recognized by the university for the integral role she played in shaping academics at the College as we know them today. As the Undergraduate Program Chair, she helped to guide a wholesale revamping of the curriculum, an accomplishment recognized by the department with its Award for Outstanding Service in 2000. She helped overhaul the undergraduate admission application evaluation process in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision against affirmative action in 2003, and supported transfer students through the development of METS (Michigan Engineering Transfer Support), serving as its inaugural director. For these contributions and others, she received numerous awards, among them the Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award (2011), the Raymond J. and Monica E. Schultz Outreach and Diversity Award (2012) and a Distinguished Professor Award (2016).

Professor Demond’s research explored the physicochemical aspects of movement in and removal of organic contaminants from the subsurface environment. She worked on a wide array of projects from assessing exposure to soil contamination in the vicinity of Dow Chemical in Midland, MI, to an evaluation for the State of Michigan of the risk posed by Line 5 under the Straits of Mackinac, to understanding mechanistically the changes that clay undergoes due to contact with hazardous waste. She chaired, co-chaired, or served on the Ph.D. committees of 43 students in five different departments (three different schools) at the University.

Her research contributions resulted in about 70 publications and 200 presentations at both international and domestic conferences.

In recognition of her meritorious career, the University has 36

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distinguished her as a professor emerita of civil and environmental engineering.

CEE extends our gratitude to Professor Victor Li for his 30 years at the University of Michigan and his great dedication to CEE and its students. Among his contributions to the university, he has served as the Director of the College of Engineering’s Center for Low Carbon Built Environment, where he and his team worked to improve productivity in the construction and maintenance of infrastructure in order to reduce carbon emissions.

Professor Li’s research focuses on the design, processing, and characterization of smart fiber-reinforced cementitious composites for resilient and sustainable built environments. His research team has engaged in interdisciplinary studies that link industrial ecology and structural health monitoring with bioinspired materials designed to enhance harmony between the built and the natural environment.

In particular, he and his team have conducted research on the general decarbonization of the built environment, as well as on carbon sequestration and the use of 3D printing to create Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC). Furthermore, his team is responsible for revolutionizing the technology of concrete development, aiding in the adoption of ductile ECC technology in the transportation, building, water and energy infrastructure industries.

Professor Li’s many years of commitment to the College of Engineering have been commemorated by a variety of awards and professional honors, such as the Stephen S. Attwood Excellence in Engineering Award, the E. B. Wylie Collegiate Chair Professorship, the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award, and the Rackham Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award. He has also been honored by the College with his appointment as a James R. Rice Distinguished University Professor in recognition of his achievements in the advancement of engineered cementitious composites and their use as a sustainable construction material, as well as for his inspirational leadership within the College.

Although he may be retiring, Professor Li will always hold U-M in his heart. He hopes to continue to support his students postretirement by aiding them in their learning and activities outside of the classroom. He encourages young faculty members to reach out to him should they need any support in developing their careers or advising on research.

CEE congratulates Professors Li and Demond on a successful end to this chapter of their careers. Their contributions to the department and their dedication to their students will be remembered for years to come. We look forward to seeing what they will continue to bring to their department as emeritus faculty members. Please join us in sending our congratulations and best wishes in their future endeavors.

IN MEMORIAM In order by year of graduation James J. Kennedy BSECE ‘45 10/28/2022

Philip M. Rice BSECE ‘54 1/16/2023

Hormuzd Y. Rassam MSE ‘60 12/21/2022

Thomas R. Rampe MSE ‘73 10/13/2022

Creighton C. Lederer BSECE ‘49 8/18/2023

David R. Despres BSECE ‘55 MSE ‘56 11/24/2022

Zbigniew M. Bzymek MSE ‘61 3/31/2023

John C. Person BSECE ’74 MSE ‘80 JD ‘83 5/30/2023

Roy F. Linsenmeyer MSE ‘50 11/09/2018

Thomas P. Propson BSECE ‘55 MSE ‘59 PhD ‘70 1/16/2023

Pierre J. LaBouve BSECE ‘61 9/4/2023

Kurt P. Leutheuser BSECE ‘75 MSE ‘76 1/4/2023

Carl H. Carlson MSE ‘51 4/16/2023

Ellsworth E. Kasdorf BSECE ‘57 9/19/2022

Edward W. Monroe MSE ‘63 7/18/2023

Robert A. Hyde MSE ‘75 2/4/2023

Donald S. Hill BSECE ‘51 MSE ‘52 11/18/2022

Otto W. Kalmbach BSECE ‘57 01/15/2023

Harbans S. Sandhu BSECE ‘63 MSE ‘64 4/30/2023

Stephen R. Okkonen BSECE ‘76 4/6/2023

Fred J. Auch BSECE ‘51 9/12/2022

Tasso Schmidgall BSECE ‘57 2/16/2022

Walter N. Heine MSE ‘64 2/14/2023

Charles H. Gould MSE ‘79 6/27/2022

Jack A. Josephson BSECE ‘51 10/22/2022

H. Carl Walker BSECE ‘58 MSE ‘59 2/4/2023

Donald R. Hassall MSE ‘65 12/2/2022

Robert A. Larsen BSECE ‘80 7/30/2022

Robert J. Brungraber BSECE ‘51 6/27/2022

William J. Maki BSECE ‘58 11/22/2020

Douglas J. Piper BSECE ‘65 12/30/2022

Hassen Hammoud MSE ‘87 MSE ‘92 PhD ‘93 4/3/2020

William E. Meadowcroft MSE ‘51 12/25/2022

John D. Rose BSECE ‘58 7/11/2022

David L. Anthony BSECE ‘66 8/22/2023

Ernest J. Hahn BSECE ‘94 MSE ‘96 JD ‘01 7/28/2023

James B. Saag BSECE ‘52 MSE ‘53 2/16/2023

Dale J. Visser BSECE ‘59 7/15/2019

Thomas E. Clark BSECE ‘66 10/26/2021

Kevin S. Austin BSECE ‘95 1/14/2023

Richard D. Snyder BSECE ‘52 3/17/2018

Hormuzd Y. Rassam MSE ‘60 12/21/2022

Mark D. Dembs BSECE ‘70 12/7/2022

William D. Betts BSECE ‘53 8/8/2023

Walter F. Lewis BSECE ‘60 2/4/2023

J. David Grenley BSECE ‘71 7/27/2019

John J. McKeon BSECE ‘53 5/2/2023

Kurt F. Frank BSECE ‘60 MSE ‘63 9/21/2023

Douglas G. Willits BSECE ‘72 MSE ‘74 3/8/2023

Photo by Levi Hutmacher/Michigan Engineering, Communications & Marketing

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