Via Report No. 26 – 2012 - Department of Civil and Environmental

Transcription

the Charles E. Via, Jr.
Department of Civil
and Environmental
Engineering
2012 Via Report • No. 26
Table Of Contents
Department Head’s Message
4
Courses deliver diversity, whether on campus or on-line........................ 3
Research News
Water, water everywhere, and Silas Marner may have been right........... 4
20
Collaboration is the new standard for concrete..................................... 6
Prevention through Design: a new approach to reduce construction risks... 8
Constructing the globalization rubric and intercultural team rules............... 9
Faculty News
Awards, Honors and Achievements...............................................11
6
New Faculty..................................................................................12
Retirement
Novak dedicated to healthy lifestyle, clean environment..................13
Student News
23
Undergraduate Scholarships.........................................................15
Graduate Scholarships and Fellowships.......................................16
Ph.D. Degrees Awarded................................................................17
Alumni News
CEE Alumni Board Members.........................................................18
Program Areas
8
CEE Faculty by Program Area..........................................................19
Vecellio Construction Engineering and Management...........................20
Environmental and Water Resources Engineering..............................23
27
Geotechnical Engineering................................................................27
Structural Engineering and Materials.................................................29
Transportation Infrastructure and Systems Engineering.......................31
Via Scholars............................................................................35
Via Alumni: Where are they now?...................................52
9
Via Donors...............................................................................61
ON THE COVER
The Baker Environmental Hydraulics Laboratory is directed by Panayiotis
Diplas, professor of the Via Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering at Virginia Tech. Diplas received two prestigious awards in
the past year for his pioneering work. See story, page 4. (Photo by Logan
Wallace).
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“The Via Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering plans
to move forward with the continuing development of selective on-line
opportunities for undergraduates, further enhancing the program,
making it more attractive to students.” ~ Sam Easterling, CEE Department Head
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DEPARTMENT HEAD’S MESSAGE
Courses deliver diversity, whether on campus or on-line
has provided courses in a video-teleconference
Diversity – we talk about the subject in a
mode simultaneously to a number of sites
variety of contexts, including faculty, student
across the Commonwealth since 1984. Likeand staff demographics; technical areas within
wise, we have participated in point-to-point
our field; and our research portfolio. All of
delivery via video tele-conferencing of graduate
these are clearly important and essential to the
courses between Blacksburg and the National
successful future of our department, university
Capital Region since 1997. We also have a
and profession. However, I want to focus my
limited number of graduate courses that have
comments here on the subject of diversity of
on-line components to the delivery.
course offerings. In particular, I want to wade in
Those things said, we have not had a
to the discussion on the way in which our coursstrong focus in supporting our undergraduate
es are delivered, or if you will, the diversity of
student needs in the area of altercourse offerings.
native course delivery. I plan to
Earlier this year in the
help the department go forward
summer session, we offered a
with continuing development of
section of one of our fundamenselective on-line opportunities
tal undergraduate courses in an
for undergraduates. Rest assured
on-line format for the first time.
that the quality of the offerings
You might ask why this is a big
will be paramount in our work in
deal given the national discussion
this area. Our alumni and friends
about on-line delivery of courses
rightfully have high expectations
to, in some cases, very large numof our undergraduate program.
bers of students. I would answer
Our objective as a department
that it is a big deal because my
will be to improve and enhance
perspective, and one that is fairly
our program to make it even
generally held, is that the Virginia
SAM EASTERLING
more beneficial and attractive
Tech undergraduate experience is
for students. I want to invite you to share your
inextricably linked to spending most of the time
thoughts with me on the subject as we move
in Blacksburg. However, we strongly encourforward. My email address is [email protected].
age our students to participate in internships
You’ll find a section on New Faculty
and co-op experiences, as well as international
within the pages that follow. Once again, I feel
study broad opportunities. To support them in
extremely fortunate and proud that we were
these endeavors, we need to make sure they can
able to attract faculty of such high caliber to
continue to make appropriate progress toward
our department. There are brief bios intheir degrees while they are away from Blackscluded for Dr. Zachary Grasley and Dr. Ioannis
burg. Likewise, there are undergraduates who
Koutromanos. Dr. Husen Zhang joined us
can benefit from alternative course delivery
following the completion of this section of the
methods while they are in Blacksburg taking
report, so look for a bio of Dr. Zhang in future
most of their courses in a traditional face-todepartmental publications. I hope you have an
face format. One way to support our students’
opportunity to interact with each of them in the
needs to continue progress toward their degrees
near future.
in various situations is to develop and increase
The opportunity to hire new faculty is
our on-line offerings at the undergraduate level.
often predicated on the retirement of current
Just to be clear, our department has been
faculty. The end of the fall semester marks the
delivering courses “remotely” for almost 30
“official” retirement of Professor John Novak.
years. In particular, members of our faculty
There is a nice article highlighting John’s longhave been participating in the Commonwealth
term service to Virginia Tech, our department
Graduate Education Program (CGEP), which
and the profession in general. While we’ll miss
seeing Professor Novak on a day-to-day basis, I
look forward to his continued participation in
our research and graduate education missions
for some to time to come. Please join me in
congratulating and thanking Professor Novak
for his commitment and service to Virginia
Tech!
You’ll once again find excellent articles
on several of the outstanding research projects
that are in progress within the department. This
work is not only supporting students in the department but serving the Commonwealth and
society in general. And rest assured – these are
but a few of the many great things in progress!
The absolute highlight of the document is
the section on our Via Scholars. We as faculty
have the privilege of getting to know and work
with these outstanding students on a day to
day basis. I hope that the student biographical
sketches contained in the report help you as
alumni and friends get to know them at least
a little. Hopefully, you’ll have the opportunity
to interact with the Via Scholars as well as the
many other outstanding students in the department through your on-campus visits, professional activities or as future employers. Each
year with the influx of new students we as a
faculty are reminded just how fortunate we are
to be part of the Via Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering!
There are a number of our staff and
faculty that are responsible for pulling together
various parts of the Via Report. I want to thank
them for the work they do in helping bring this
document to reality each year. I want to close
by thanking Ms. Lynn Nystrom for the exceptional job she does each year as Editor and Mr.
David Simpkins for his wonderful design work.
I know you’ll enjoy the results of their exceptional talent and great work!
With kind regards,
RESEARCH
Water, water everywhere,
and Silas Marner may
have been right
Panos Diplas, director of the Kelso Baker Hydraulics Laboratory,
received the 2012 Hans Albert Einstein Award for lifetime achievements.
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E
ighty billion metric tons is an unfathomable amount to the human brain.
Yet that number is the estimation of
the global amount of sediment eroded on a
yearly basis over the continental surface of the
earth. An estimated 20 billion of these metric
tons end up in the ocean water via rivers.
The action of water and wind is responsible for this massive redistribution of materials, leading to significant water pollution.
“This redistribution of material over the
surface of the earth affects most of its physical, chemical, and biological processes in ways
that are not well understood and which are
exceedingly difficult to comprehend,” Panos
Diplas, professor of civil and environmental
engineering (CEE) at Virginia Tech, said.
Farmers familiar with the flow of a small
stream on their property can tell you tales of
when that seemingly innocent body of water
reacts to heavy downpours and becomes two,
three, or even 10 times its normal size. It can
move culverts, change course, and wash away
low-lying areas adjacent to the stream, including gravel roads. Agricultural run-off is a huge
problem in farming.
Diplas has spent part of his career studying river mechanics, improving the understanding of erosional processes, and sediment
transport. His multiple research findings
over more than two decades earned him the
2012 Hans Albert Einstein Award, a lifetime
achievement award. He was also a member of
a team that received the 2012 Karl Emil Hilgard Hydraulic Prize for the best paper, and
both awards came from the American Society
of Civil Engineers.
At Virginia Tech, Diplas directs the
Kelso Baker Hydraulics Laboratory, considered the best such facility in Virginia and the
surrounding states. CEE alumnus Kelso Baker
provided the support to create this lab that enables researchers to study phenomena related
to the movement of water, sediment, and pollutants through wetlands and waterways. The
lab also provides the means for modeling the
behavior of stream flow during floods, simulating ecological aspects of channel flows, and
developing measures to control scour around
bridge piers and other structures.
The uniqueness of this university laboratory can provide Diplas and his colleagues a
strong competitive advantage when applying
for research project funding. For example, he
currently is an investigator on several projects,
Continued on next page
including: two National Cooperative Highway
Research program grants ($600,000 and
$500,000 respectively); two National Science
Foundation awards ($380,000 and $74,000 respectively); a $210,000 Defense University Research Instrumentation Program investigation;
a $247,000 Army Research Office project;
and a $258,000 Virginia Uranium, Inc. study.
These projects support work on bridge foundation scour, design of in-stream structures,
movement of contaminants through a riverine
system, role of turbulent flow on particle
movement, and dam decommissioning.
Why so many different types of grants?
As Diplas explained, the impact of flow in
such areas as streams, rivers, floodplains,
and in the vicinity of infrastructure, such as
bridge crossings, has broad-reaching implications. It can “influence the hydrosphere, the
pedosphere (the outer most layer of the earth
composed of soil), the biosphere, and the
atmosphere in profound ways,” he said.
An overview of Diplas’ expertise that
garnered him the Einstein Award can be
found in a book chapter he authored with
Clinton Dancey, a faculty member and collaborator from the mechanical engineering
department. The book, Coherent Flow Structures at the Earth’s Surface, to be published
in 2013, contains their chapter “Initiation of
motion, sediment transport, and morphological feedbacks in rivers.”
In it, they wrote, “Determining the mini-
mum, or critical, force necessary to dislodge a
particle out of its pocket, arguably constitutes
one of the most fundamental and elementary
problems in mechanics, regardless of the type
of movement. When it comes to flow-induced
forces, identifying this critical condition has
confounded scientists and engineers for several
hundred years.
“The main culprit for this problem is the
fluctuating nature of the applied fluid forces,
due to the turbulent nature of the flow, while
the resistance to particle movement remains
the same.”
Diplas pointed to “coherent flow structure characteristics typically encountered
in turbulent flows which dominate natural
phenomena” and how they impact particle
containment in water. He believes that particle
dislodging in waterways is due to more than
just force magnitude. The duration of the
applied hydrodynamic forces is “relevant in
predicting grain removal from the channel
bed surface,” he wrote in his book chapter.
Also, in the article that won him the
Hilgard Prize, Diplas argued that “flow and
turbulence are more influenced by the vegetation density” than by other factors.
Vegetation in aquatic environments
“considerably alters the turbulent flow in
streams, rivers, and floodplains. The additional drag exerted by plants largely influences…
the transport of sediments” and dissolved
substances, Diplas said. This research was
already substantiated.
Diplas’ new contribution in this area of
study is the result of his large-eddy simulation
studies of turbulent flow. He was able to show
through analysis that flow and turbulence are
more influenced by vegetation density than by
the cylinder-based diameter Reynolds number. In fluid mechanics the Reynolds number
is used to characterize different flow regimes.
When forces resistant to change dominate
turbulent flow, it is likely to create eddies,
vortices, and other flow instabilities.
Diplas’ work in this area was supported
by the National Science Foundation and
eventually led to a publication in an issue of
Science in 2008, “Analysis of impulse events
associated to entrainment of coarse particles.”
Several more publications have followed the
Science article, and several more are currently
in press. The book chapter provides a summary of this work.
“Your recent work published in Science
is amongst the most important contributions
to the sediment entrainment literature since
the pioneering work of A.J. Grass in the early
1970s,” wrote the editors of the book, Coherent Flow Structures at the Earth’s Surface, in
their letter inviting Diplas to contribute a book
chapter. This book is part of a series published every 15 years summarizing the most
important developments in river mechanics
and related phenomena.
~ By Lynn Nystrom
In his laboratory, Panos Diplas uses miniature pressure transducers, fully embedded into a grain, to measure
the pressure fluctuations on a fully exposed particle due to turbulent flow. The resulting instantaneous
forces, together with their duration, determine whether the particle will be moved by the flow.
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RESEARCH
Collaboration is the new
standard for concrete
Galo Bowen, a graduate student, works in
the Structures and Materials Laboratory.
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ew insights into the performance
of concrete materials are producing safer, less costly construction
and a longer life for the nation’s bridges and
other structures, according to Cris Moen, an
assistant professor of civil and environmental
engineering at Virginia Tech.
Moen recently completed a project,
funded by the Precast/Prestressed Concrete
Institute (PCI), where he and Raymond Plaut,
emeritus professor of civil and environmental
engineering at Virginia Tech, created an “accurate and accessible method for predicting
(beam) behavior during lifting.” They hope
the results will help reduce the number of
catastrophic failures during the lifting of long,
precast concrete bridge girders.
The most recent case of such a failure
occurred in July 2012. A crane lowering a
52-ton highway girder collapsed, leaving one
man dead at the Butte Des Morts Causeway
in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
is still investigating the accident, according
to thenorthwestern.com, the website for the
Oshkosh newspaper.
Moen also has completed the first
third of a three-year project funded by the
Virginia Center for Transportation Innovation and Research, the research division of
the Virginia Department of Transportation
(VDOT), analyzing the structural benefits of
corrosion-resistant reinforcing (CRR) steel
bars in bridge decks. Moen is collaborating
with Mani Golparvar-Fard, assistant professor
of construction engineering and management
at Virginia Tech, to digitally recreate and
compare results of the different tests.
In addition, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Moen a grant to model
the performance and structural analysis of
ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC).
Moen started work on this current project in
August with Gianluca Cusatis, an associate
professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University.
Moen said he “emphatically” believes
in collaborating with others to expedite and
focus research and to tap their different
strengths and areas of expertise. He relies on
Plaut’s 40 years of experience in solving structural stability and mechanics problems and
Cusatis’ groundbreaking work on mesoscale
interactions within cement-based composites
to add to his own skill set as well as to ensure
Continued on next page
Cris Moen, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, third
from left, works with his graduate students to test reinforced concrete.
faster progress. Mesoscale usually refers to
an object as small as 100 nanometers or individual atoms to as large as 1000 nanometers,
an actual material.
According to OSHA, the construction
industry had the most workplace fatalities
in 2010 with 774. Governing design codes
require very basic stability checks, but they
currently lack guidance for lifting precast
prestressed beams.
Through his statistical analysis of geometric imperfections, Moen has fashioned recommendations and a computation tool with
simplified equations for a beam’s mechanical
behavior. The information can be placed in
an Excel file so construction personnel can get
a quick, reliable estimate.
Moen says this freely accessible spreadsheet, available at www.moen.cee.vt.edu, is
accurate to within five percent. He said it
also gives more reliable information about
a beam’s internal forces and deflections to
contractors and engineers than previous work
from the early 1990s by Robert Mast, former
president and chairman of BergerABAM.
Moen and Plaut used Mast’s technical papers
as the starting point for their new work.
As the first year wraps up for Moen’s
investigation of CRR steel bars and his first
series of tests, the civil engineer says he is
excited that his work is demonstrating the
structural benefits of CRR, which typically
is stronger than normal grade steel when
compared with bars of equal diameters. What
this means for VDOT and all who use Virginia’s roads is a longer life for bridge decks,
resulting in fewer lane and road closures for
future maintenance. Construction costs would
remain about the same because, while CRR
is more expensive, the highway agency will
need to use less of this new corrosion-resistant
material to provide the same structural performance in a bridge deck.
CRR will reduce spalling in bridge decks,
caused by road salts penetrating the driving
surface into the reinforcement, also reducing
maintenance costs. Slab tests, finished in July
2012, compared the performance of three
types of CRR, including stainless steel and
new tailored steel microcomposites and one
standard grade bars within two different deck
options. Moen said he hopes the findings
from these tests will be immediately useful to
VDOT.
He first met Cusatis at an NSF review
panel. After discussing some of their previous
endeavors regarding ultra-high performance
concrete, they formulated a proposal to deliver
a general computational model that could
perform structural analysis causing full-scale
UHPC components to collapse.
Moen wanted to apply his previous work
with professors Carin Roberts-Wollmann and
Tommy Cousins from Virginia Tech and John
Bolander from UC-Davis – computational
lattice modeling of UHPC that included
random cracking, sponsored by the Institute
of Critical Technology and Applied Science
at Virginia Tech and combined with Cusatis’
mesoscale models – to full-scale structures
made of UHPC, especially the study of material efficient thin-walled UHPC structural
members.
The other component of the UHPC
cooperative is educationally focused, as
required by the NSF grant. Moen and Cusatis
are working on using popular summer-camp
activities for high school students, sponsored
by the Virginia Tech Center for Enhancement
of Engineering Diversity, recruiting undergraduate researchers at both Virginia Tech
and Northwestern University, and creating a
new module for the NSF–Virtual Center for
Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructures.
Ultimately, Moen’s research will foster
new ideas for structural concepts in civil infrastructure by providing an alternative to fullscale experiments that use powerful computational mechanics to simulate random cracking
and plasticity within cement-based composites. The work of Moen and his collaborators
also will provide computer-based analysis tools
that can be used to develop the next generation of concrete bridge and building design
codes for longer-lasting, safer structures.
~ By Neal Moriconi
RESEARCH
Prevention through
Design: a new
approach to reduce
construction risks
Deborah Young-Corbett has obtained National Science Foundation and National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health funding to enhance Prevention through Design strategies for health hazard control.
“
Some of the most pressing occupational health hazard risks in construction”
are associated with masonry operations,
asphalt roofing, and welding, wrote Deborah
Young-Corbett in an article recently accepted
by the Journal of Civil Engineering and Management.
To reduce these health risks to construction workers, Young-Corbett, an assistant professor of civil and environmental
engineering at Virginia Tech and a member
of the university’s Myers-Lawson School of
Construction since 2007, has studied much
of the existing literature, identifying numerous gaps or problems in current construction
practices.
As a result, Young-Corbett is working in
a new field of engineering known as Prevention through Design or PtD. The optimal
method of preventing occupational illnesses,
injuries, and fatalities is to “design out” the
hazards and risks; thereby, eliminating the
need to control them during work operations,
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Young-Corbett said. This approach involves
the design of tools, equipment, systems, work
processes, and facilities in order to reduce, or
eliminate, occupational hazards and environmental risks.
She is teaching these new state-of-theart design tactics in her classes, providing her
undergraduate and graduate students with a
better understanding of how to improve the
long-term success of the construction industry. Young-Corbett is a certified industrial
hygienist, safety professional, and hazardous
materials manager with a background in environmental sciences, human factors engineering, and industrial engineering.
In 2008, the National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
launched the PtD initiative in an attempt to
mitigate hazards in the construction sector in
the design stage. Yet, four years later, YoungCorbett’s review of the industry’s safety
procedures shows some of the “barriers” to
PtD adoption and she identifies strategies for
the construction industry to use to improve its
health records.
Young-Corbett provides evidence in
her assessment of the industry of a “gap” in
the PtD initiative that does not address the
approaches to “occupational health hazard
control,” with the key word being “health.”
These “health risks arise when workers are
exposed to chemical, biological, or energetic
hazards that might lead to various illnesses or
fatalities,” Young-Corbett said.
For example, additional changes in tool
selection in masonry could alleviate much of
the health risks, according to Young-Corbett.
With a masonry operation, a key issue is
to reduce the silica dust produced when
sawing. Now that wet methods are available
for hand-operated grinders used for surface
finishing and cutting slots, these devices can
keep operators’ exposures to silica below Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(OSHA) limits, she noted.
See Young-Corbett, page 10
I
magine going in for a performance evaluation and the only object in the room is a
report saying your work is not up to par.
No explanations are provided, and no one is
available to you to ask how to improve your
efforts.
This feeling of frustration is one many
construction companies face in their efforts to
go global.
Looking into the abyss of globalization
for the building industry and the potential difficulties of cross-cultural partnerships is John
E. Taylor, an associate professor of civil and
environmental engineering at Virginia Tech.
Taylor has created a unique lab at Virginia
Tech that conducts experiments and develops
simulations that examine, model and improve
systemic change in engineering networks of
industrial and societal importance. One of
the key areas of research his Civil Engineering Network Dynamics Lab investigates is the
impact of globalization dynamics on design
and construction project performance.
Taylor has synthesized critical success
factors for construction companies that should
enhance their efforts to become truly global.
The Construction Industry Institute, the
National Science Foundation and the Alfred
P. Sloan Foundation are funding his work in
this area.
Construction companies face the usual
obstacles of corporations trying to tap into
markets across the world, but they also face
some of the most unique challenges. This isn’t
just collaborating with a new office or setting
up conference calls to discuss sales pitches,
factory output, or brand advertising. Global
construction takes on the routine problems
and juggles the batons of complex political
interests, soils and terrain, and owner’s desires,
while on a metaphorical fire of cross-cultural
partnerships.
Taylor worked with Gerald Schacht
of Abbott Laboratories and Rob Smith of
CH2M HILL, co-chairs on the Global SelfAssessment Tool or G-SAT project. They
also collaborated with John Messner of Penn
State University. Their work is empowering
engineering and construction organizations in
the evaluation of their globalization progress,
tactics for further globalization, and prioritization of those tactics, said Taylor. The G-SAT
also creates a metric to measure and compare
the globalization efforts of companies and
tracks their progress over time. G-SAT is
See Taylor, page 10
RESEARCH
Constructing
the globalization
rubric and
intercultural
team rules
John Taylor has created the Network Dynamics Laboratory to
investigate the impact of globalization on design and construction.
See Evacuation, page 7
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Young-Corbett
Construction supervisors should also be
advocating hand operated surface grinders
that are made with better vacuum dust collection systems, also reducing an operator’s
exposure to silica.
In roofing, the workers’ exposure to
asphalt fumes and vapors lead to both acute
and chronic effects. Lung cancer is at an elevated risk for asphalt roofers. But, as YoungCorbett argued in her paper, delivery of hot
asphalt to a job site via a tanker, eliminates
the on-site kettle operation for handling and
heating the asphalt, and makes a difference to
the health of the worker.
Similar relatively simple changes in the
practice of welding can also make an impact
in the decline of health-related problems.
The use of local exhaust ventilation systems
can prevent worker exposure to metal fumes
during welding, Young-Corbett wrote in her
article in the Journal of Civil Engineering and
Management.
In general, Young-Corbett said there
are still needs for designs for better tools or
materials, but in other cases, “effective tools
exist but are not widely adopted within the
industry ... there is a need to elucidate the
barriers to PtD adoption and to identify
strategies for improved diffusion within the
construction industry.”
“The further refinement and marketing
of PtD solutions such as the smokeless welding gun, the low-smoke welding wire, and the
local-exhaust ventilation systems for welding
are needed,” she asserted.
Several of the research endeavors of
Young-Corbett’s laboratory have been in the
realm of PtD. A NIOSH-sponsored research
project entitled Dust-control Usage: Strategic
Technology Intervention (DUSTI), developed
new equipment design solutions for dust control in construction and an intervention for
improving adoption rates within the industry.
In a project sponsored by the National
Science Foundation, a pervasive computing
system was developed for sensing construction
worker exposure to carbon monoxide and
wirelessly summoning assistance in the event
of over-exposure.
Young-Corbett recently received a grant
from NIOSH to develop PtD design and intervention strategies for health hazard control in
masonry, asphalt roofing, and welding trades.
~ By Lynn Nystrom
Taylor
offered in Excel and after taking
several hours to complete the
first time, is relatively easy to
update allowing companies to
easily track the progress of their
globalization plans.
In a different study, Taylor
and collaborators Sirkka Jarvenpaa and Elizabeth Keating from
the University of Texas at Austin
with funding from the National
Science Foundation studied three
companies with offices in the
Romania, Kolkata, and Mumbai.
Each firm is collaborating with
a different engineering office in
the United States. Through these
long-term case studies they developed several recommendations
for the construction industry.
Taylor suggested collaborating firms give more attention
to recognizing misalignment
between the two groups of
project managers and engineers
(continued from page 8)
and identifying compromises to
was noted that the amount and
find common ground between
manner communicated affected
cultures and practices. He also
how positive it was. Taylor also
advised that there is a need to
indicated that this holds true for
better undercross generastand and man- Taylor has created a unique tional interacage expectations lab at Virginia Tech that
tions as well as
of the other
cross cultural.
conducts experiments
cultural group’s and develops simulations
Taylor
behavior, outand
his
team
that examine, model, and
look, communiquantified the
improve systemic change
cation, values,
importance
in engineering networks
and historical
of what they
of industrial and societal dubbed a “culleadership styles.
importance.
The team
tural boundary
developed
spanner.” This
several solutions ranging from
team member has spent a few
better use of conferencing and
years in both countries and is
work flow management software
knowledgeable concerning both
to improving individual and team
cultures. As they hypothesized,
awareness of behaviors that are
the cultural boundary spanner
interpreted as disregarding and
became the center of cultural
disrespectful. A cross cultural
communication and a key to
necessity for positive feedback
achieving efficient cross-cultural
was found to be important and it
team performance, said Taylor.
In a serious of experiments,
Taylor and the team were able
to show that multicultural teams
with a cultural boundary spanner
are able to initially outperform
other multicultural teams by 33
percent and a cultural boundary
spanner enabled a multicultural team to perform as well as
a domestic group with the same
culture and language after several
project interactions.
Another crucial finding
was that, as multicultural teams
adapt, their performance rapidly
improves and can outperform
a homogenously cultural and
lingual group, said Taylor.
Taylor has identified two key
advancements for companies to
become and stay globally competitive with the development of
G-SAT and the quantified value
of a cultural boundary spanner.
~ By Neal Moriconi
FACULTY NEWS
AWARDS, HONORS, AND ACHIEVEMENTS
Jesus de la Garza
• Elected to
the Construction
Management Association
of America
(CMAA)
College of
Fellows
de la Garza
• 2012 College of Engi-
neering Dean’s Award for
Excellence in Research
Tom Dingus
• Inducted
into the
Grado Department of
Industrial
and Systems Engineering
Dingus
Academy
of Distinguished Alumni
Panos Diplas
• ASCE Environmental Water
Resources
Institute
2012 Hans
Albert
Einstein
Award
American
Institute
of Steel
Construction Milek
Faculty
Fellowship
Eatherton
Marc Edwards
• 2012 Virginia Tech
Alumni
Award for
Excellence in
Graduate
Advising
Edwards
George Filz
• Inducted
into the
CEE
Academy
of Distinguished
Alumni
• Florida
Diplas
Resources Institute 2012
Karl Emil Hilgard Hydraulic Prize
Sam Easterling
• 2012
Easterling
Mani Golparvar-Fard
• 2011 Best
Journal
Paper
Award
from the
ASCE
Journal of
ConGolparvar-Fard
struction
Engineering and Management
• First-Place Best Poster
Award at the 2012 Construction Research
Congress.
Russell Green
• College of
Engineering 2012
Certificate of
Teaching
Excellence
Award
• 2012 VisitFilz
ASCE
Project of the Year Award
Dan Gallagher
• 2012 G.V.
• Environmental Water
American
Institute of
Steel Construction
Special
Achievement
Award
Matt Eatherton
• 2012
Loganathan
Faculty
Achievement
Award for
DedicaGallagher
tion to
teaching, advising, and
the promotion of the Civil
Engineering Profession
Green
Roberto Leon
• ASCE
Structural
Engineering Institute’s
Presidents
Award
Leon
an ASCE
Structural Engineering
Institute Fellow
John Little
• Named
Charles
E. Via, Jr
Professor
of Civil and
Environmental
Engineering
Paper
Award in
the Transportation
Research
Board
Truck and
Bus Safety
Committee
Alumni
Teaching
Excellence
Award
Moen
Tom Murray
• Elected to
the grade
of Distinguished
Member
by the
American
Society
of Civil
Engineers.
Rakha
John Taylor
• 2011 Con-
Murray
struction
Industry
Institute
Outstanding Instructor Award
• National
Taylor
Science
Foundation CAREER
Award Recipient
John Novak
• Elected to
ing Erskine Fellowship,
University of Canterbury,
New Zealand
• Elected
Hesham Rakha
• 2011 Best
Cris Moen
• CEE
• 2011 Paper of the Year
the grade
of Fellow
in the
Water Environment
Federation
Award from the Project
Management Journal
Novak
Amy Pruden-Bagchi
• Environmental
Science
and Technology
Excellence
in Review
Award
Pruden-Bagchi
Peter Vikesland
• 2011-2012
UPS Foundation
Visiting
Associate
Professor
of CEE at
Stanford
Vikesland
Mike Vorster
• 2012 Peu-
rifoy Construction
Research
Award
from the
American
Society
Vorster
of Civil
Engineers Construction
Institute
Little
FACULTY NEWS
NEW FACULTY
ZACHARY GRASLEY
IOANNIS KOUTROMANOS
For the past six years, Zachary Grasley was an assistant professor in
the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M, and was part
of the materials group. He led the Sustainable Infrastructure Materials
Group (SIM group) studying the basic physics, mechanics, and thermodynamics that dictate how materials respond to external stimuli. His SIM group worked to use fundamental theory to develop new,
more sustainable materials. In particular he was interested in more sustainable cementitious materials, as well as other porous materials, viscoelastic
materials, and those materials that exhibit composite behavior over several
length scales.
Grasley taught both undergraduate and graduate courses at Texas
A&M University focusing on materials science and material constitutive
behavior. He is currently in the process of evaluating the use of social media and student-developed analogies as teaching tools for abstract materials
concepts.
Grasley is a 2009 National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipient. His $400,000 project to link nanoscale and macroscale viscoelastic
responses of cementitious materials is valid through 2014.
His other active research projects include a $1 million grant from
Qatar National Research Fund to research thermal dilation and internal
damage of cryogenic concrete used for direct liquefied natural gas containment. He serves as the principal investigator on this three-year project. He
is co-principal investigator on a second $1 million current Qatar grant to
perform a multi-resolution analysis of dispersion and interfacial bond in
carbon nanofiber/nanotube reinforced concrete for improved strength and
fracture toughness.
See Grasley, page 34
Ioannis Koutromanos obtained his diploma in civil engineering from
the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, in 2005. Subsequently, he continued his studies as a Jacobs Fellow at the University of
California, San Diego (UCSD) Structural Engineering Department, where
he obtained a master’s degree in 2009 and a doctoral degree in 2011. Prior
to his appointment at Virginia Tech, he was a postdoctoral researcher at
UCSD.
His research focuses on structural and earthquake engineering, with
emphasis laid on the mechanics of concrete and masonry structures. He
has developed advanced constitutive models for quasibrittle materials, i.e.,
materials whose behavior is characterized by fracture processes. His models have been used in conjunction with large-scale experimental tests to
investigate the seismic performance of complicated structural systems, e.g.,
masonry-infilled RC frames.
He was a member of the reinforced masonry shear wall building
group of the ATC-76 project, which determined whether the code-specified strength reduction factors used for the seismic design of fully grouted
and partially grouted reinforced masonry shear wall buildings lead to designs with an adequately low probability of collapse. To this end, he conducted nonlinear dynamic analyses for a group of representative building
archetypes, developed with current design provisions.
He has authored and co-authored a number of reports, book chapters, and research papers, including eight papers in refereed journals and
seven in conference proceedings. His papers and reports cover a variety of
topics, such as structural dynamics, experimental testing of structural systems, constitutive modeling of quasibrittle materials, performance-based
See Koutromanos, page 33
FACULTY NEWS
RETIREMENT
Novak
dedicated
to healthy
lifestyle, clean
environment
He ran nine marathons. Completed Bike Virginia Tours, riding 40
to 60 miles for five consecutive days, not once but twice. And skied Norway’s Scandinavian mountains while on sabbatical.
John Novak is more than a dedicated individual.
Not only has Novak been enthusiastically committed to maintaining a healthy lifestyle, but also much to society’s benefit, been devoted to
cleaning up the environment for almost 50 years.
Bioremediation, hazardous waste treatment, water and wastewater
treatment, sludge treatment, and solid waste management are the basis
for Novak’s environmental research.
But before Novak would become immersed in sludge, the residual,
semi-solid material left from industrial wastewater or sewage treatment
processes, and other hazardous materials, he learned to work in trades.
Born and raised in St. Louis, Mo., the second child of five, whose
father had an eighth grade education and painted airplanes for a living,
Novak attended a vocational high school, developing the trades of welding and drafting.
While in high school, Novak applied for the Missouri highway department co-op at the University of Missouri-Columbia, “a college with
a big campus and a football team.” This co-op exposed him to surveying
and construction inspection. This experience fostered his growing interest
in the civil engineering field.
Novak went on to obtain his bachelor’s at the University of
Missouri-Columbia in civil engineering in 1964 and became a proud,
first-generation college graduate.
In his first job following college graduation, Novak went to work
with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the hydrology and hydraulics
branch. Novak worked on the Mississippi River Navigation project. He
analyzed river flows and low waters to determine if a 12-foot channel
might be better suited for deeper vessels carrying goods north of St.
Louis. Sediment in the nine-foot channel must constantly be removed
by mechanical or hydraulic dredging. This project is still relevant today,
Novak said.
A colleague who had his master’s degree influenced Novak to
go back for more education in order to be a more successful engineer.
Novak returned to the University of Missouri-Columbia where he then
graduated with a master’s in civil engineering in 1966. And just three
short years afterward, Novak obtained his doctorate from University of
Washington, Seattle.
At 27 years old, Novak returned to his alma mater once again, but
this time to teach.
“I was a junior in the civil engineering program at the University of
Missouri taking Novak’s Intro to Environmental Engineering class. And
based on my experiences and interactions with Dr. Novak, he convinced
me to stay for graduate school and later my Ph.D.,” said Bill Knocke, a
former student.
Knocke would later become the head of the Via Department of
Civil and Environmental Engineering and more recently the associate
See Novak, page 14
Novak
vice president for research programs for the
office of the vice president for research, both at
Virginia Tech.
In 1981, when contemplating a senior hire
into the environmental engineering program,
someone brought Novak’s name up.
“All eyes seemed to turn to me as they all
knew that John had been my PhD advisor at
the University of Missouri, said Knocke. That
would be great!” he immediately responded, as
he knew Novak would greatly compliment the
department’s needs.
“The irony behind this is to be kind to
your students because you never know who
will end up being your boss, “ said Knocke, the
W.C. English Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
The pair worked together on several joint
research projects over the years, including a
two-year cropland residuals application study
at the Virginia Tech Kentland Farm outside of
Blacksburg, Va. “We got a chance to be farmers,” said Knocke.
“Novak has been a wonderful asset to the
department. He is a brilliant researcher and
teacher. I admire his unwavering devotion to
his students, said Knocke. The large number of
graduate students he has taken on is incredible.“
Novak has advised 180 graduate students
in the civil engineering program.
Sam Easterling, professor and current civil
and environmental engineering department
head echoes Knocke’s sentiments, “The singular thing that stands out is his (Novak’s) unending dedication to the students with whom he’s
worked. John’s commitment to supporting as
many graduate students as he possibly can with
high level, dedicated advising, serves as a model
to which all faculty members should aspire.”
Novak, the Nick Prillaman Professor of
Civil and Environmental Engineering, also
shared his instructional talents while on sabbaticals at the University of Minnesota, Israel
Institute of Technion in Haifa, Aalborg University in Denmark, and a research fellowship at
the Norwegian Institute for Water Research.
“We hadn’t traveled much prior to living
outside of Oslo. My daughter, Paige, was in
first grade, and learned to read and speak
the language. And my son David, in the third
grade, learned to speak the language fluently.
Both children learned to ski very well as we
had snow on the ground much of the time we
were there,” said Novak fondly as he recalled
memories of the Norwegian sabbatical.
Both offspring have been directly influenced by their father’s work and career path.
They currently work in academia -- Paige, a
civil engineering professor at the University
of Minnesota and David at the University of
Vermont business school.
While teaching and researching at Virginia Tech, Novak and colleague Mark Widdowson, also a professor of civil and environmental
“John Novak has been
a wonderful asset to
the department. He is
a brilliant researcher
and teacher. I admire
his unwavering
devotion to his
students. The large
number of graduate
students he has taken
on is incredible.”
~ Bill Knocke,
Former Department Head,
Via Department of Civil
and Environmental Engineering
engineering, used poplar trees in their research
concerning the removal of creosote, a wood
preservative used to keep railroad ties from
decomposing into the soil. Once the carcinogen
is released into the ground, not only does the
soil become contaminated, but also the ground
water. The trees can take up contaminants and
convert them to harmless by products. NorfolkSouthern Corporation funded the initial four
years of the project.
Beginning in 2001 and spread over five
years, Novak was the associate director, helping
lead the $6 million Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) research facility, the Center
for Integrated Remediation Using Managed
Natural Systems (CIRUMNS) focusing on
inexpensive ways to remove contaminants from
the environment by removing pollutants and
restoring the soil and groundwater in order to
reopen land to be repurposed for recreation or
industry.
The Water and Environmental Research
Foundation has also enlisted Novak’s expertise
and supported his research for more than a decade. The sludge veteran worked with localities
all over the U.S. to identify ways to eliminate
odor and disease causing organisms developed
from sludge.
In a 2006 study, Novak tested samples
from Los Angeles to the east coast. He found
Los Angeles had “the worst odor,” in part due
to the large population and methods of disposal. In Blacksburg, sludge is incinerated and
nearly no odor can be detected, said Novak. He
suggested the dewatering process, the removal
of water from solid material or soil by wet classification, centrifugation, filtration, or similar
solid-liquid separation processes, may need to
be altered in areas where odor is evident due to
sludge.
“In the 1970s, non-environmental
practices were stopped. I estimate it will take
another 20 years or so to clean up the damage.
Current clean up of military bases and streams
are the central focus. My intention is to help
continue in the process,” said the environmentally focused professor.
In July of 2011, Novak was awarded the
Frederick George Pohland Medal from the
Association of Environmental Engineering
Scientists and Professors (AEESP). According
to the AEESP, the purpose of this award is “to
honor an individual who has made sustained
and outstanding efforts to bridge environmental
engineering research, education and practice.”
“Having had the privilege of working with
Professor Novak for the past 25 years, many
things continue to impress me about his work
and work ethic,” said Easterling.
After 31 years of service at Virginia Tech
it’s not at all surprising Novak is not technically retiring at the conclusion of the fall 2012
semester, but rather just retiring from “teaching
and getting paid,” Novak said with a smile. Novak has already agreed to continue to research
on behalf of Waste Management, Inc. and DC
Water.
~ By Lindsey Haugh
STUDENT NEWS
Undergraduate Scholarships
CE Alumni Board Scholarships
Dewberry Scholarships
John E. Pruitt, Jr. Scholarship
Antonio Candelora
Ngan Dinh
Dustin Dorph
Jacob Heisey
Beau Mackie
Mark Herman
Oscar Lara Osorio
Jared Berman
Christopher Hayes
Kenneth R. Ayers ’80 Memorial Scholarships
Cameron Gude
Fang Ye
Kelso Baker Scholarships
Kelly Pettersen
Jamie Wonderly
Jonathan Woodard
Michael Baker Corporation Engineering
Scholarship
Thomas Patchan
Balzer & Associates Scholarships
George Sydnor
Mark Tilashalski
James L. Bland Civil Engineering Scholarship
Walter & Mary Ruth Duncan Scholarships
Moises Bobadilla Molina
Kin Wong
Chelsey A. Godfrey Scholarship
Damon Kinmond
Lois Cox & Edna Goodwin Scholarship
Chelsea Gress
Jack Knapp
Clinton Martin
Casie Venable
Williams A. Joyner Scholarships
L.J. Turner & W.S. Dewhirst Scholarship
Lesley Read
Rachel Wilson
Jordan Johnson
Dennis & Sherry Kamber Scholarships
Lingerfelt Family Foundation Scholarships
Kaitlin Blackwell
Jordan Gibson
Jerry Kline
Kenneth Maben
Hersie B. & Ethel G. McCauley Scholarships
Cameron Scheidler
Thomas Frederick
Heather Todak
Joseph and Jane Christenbury Memorial
Scholarship
Andrew “Tripp” McDavid Memorial
Scholarship
Connor McManus
Jordan Johnson
Civil Engineering Class of ’58 Scholarships
Kenton & Liliana Meland Scholarship
Nicole Abramson
Josh Coble
Elizabeth Godfrey
Mark Jones
Elizabeth O’Shaughnessy
Greg Schmitt
Tylor Underwood
Derek Slovenec
Stanley & Francis Cohen Scholarships
Jordan Enslen
Stuart Woodard
Tyler Quince
John DeBell Civil Engineering Scholarship
Nida Syed
Stantec Awards for Excellence in Engineering
Undergraduate George A. Stewart Scholars
Justin Emery
Joseph Whartenby
Warren F. Cline Scholarship
Eileen Phan
Julie Trumpoldt
Charles S. Hughes Scholarships
Charles and Patricia Brown Scholarships
William A. Caruthers CE Scholarship
Howell & Ann Simmons Land Development
Design Scholarship
Ethan Hill
Ryan Lally
Zachary Barlow
Gregory Pope, Jr.
Eric Bruning
Reagan Gibbs
Heather Hlavaty
Brandon Stinespring
Everett Carter Memorial Scholarship
Richard Quarterman ’04 Memorial Scholarship
Newport News Shipbuilding Scholarship
Alexandra Boyle
Pratt Study Abroad Scholarships Summer
2012
Nicole Abramson
Janna Bonfiglio
Travis Bullock
Katherine Fordney
Connor McManus
Brian Miller
Facundo Saavedra
Rebecca Temkin
Matthew Watts
Vecellio Scholarship
Akram Ahmed (CEE)
Cassondra Gorgos (CEM/CEE)
Caitlin Keller (CEE)
Aleksander Leckszas (CEM)
Patrick Morris (CEM)
George Sydnor (CEE)
Virginia-Carolinas Structural Steel Fabricators
Association
Marcus Freeman
Ngar Dinh
Virginia Concrete Scholarships
Thomas Dacanay
Akram Ahmed
Achmaa Vaanjilnorov
Harry S. & Patsy B. Williams
Scholarships
Samuel Barnes
Benjamin Folsom
Williams Industries Scholarships
Anna Kirby
Ryan Slabachbrubaker
Verne & Jewel Williamson Scholarship
Layton Schaeffer
STUDENT NEWS
Graduate Scholarships and Fellowships
American Institute of Steel Construction
Education Foundation Fellowship
Scott Darling
Paul Zheng
Geological Society of America Southeastern Section Student
Research Grant
Nikolaos Apsilidis
Holly A. Cornell Scholarship - AWWA
Gerondelis Foundation
Brandi Clark
Polydefkis Bouratsis
Cunningham Fellowship
Jeremy Herbstritt Fellowship from
Sussman Foundation
Jennifer Miller
Raymond & Madeline Curry Fellowships
Christopher Galitz
Jeena Jayamon
Abhilasha Maurya
Thomas N. Hunnicutt III Fellowship
Davenport Fellowship
Hydro Research Foundation Fellowship
Clayton Hodges
John Petrie
Dean’s Diversity Fellowship
Institute for Critical Technology and
Applied Science (ICTAS)
Edwin Gonzalez
Environmental Protection Agency STAR
Fellowship
Erin Littleton
Jennifer Younes
Daniel Vanden Berge
Craig Shillaber
Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research
Fellowship
Nikolaos Apsilidis
Edna Bailey Sussman Fellowships
Rick Bowne
Andrew Freitas
Abhinav Gupta
Mark Mazzochette
Katherine Phetxumphou
Justin St. Clair
Andrew Vance
Hong Wang
SAIC Transportation Research
Fellowship
Hao Chen
Ismail Zohdy
Vecellio Fellows
Noah Jolley
Joshua Zilke
Rebecca Halvorson
Andrea Tiwari
G.V. Loganathan Fellowship
Vietnam Education Foundation
Fellowship
Yongqian Yang
Duc Nguyen
Leifur Eiriksson Fellowship
National Science Foundation East
Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes
(EAPSI) Fellowship
Virginia Water Resources Research
Center
Christian Olivera
Fugro Fellow
Jacob Wirtz
Fulbright Fellowships
Nurlayla Arbie
Natalya Egorova
Miguel Robles Lora
Alba Taveras Marte
Brett Maurer
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Integrative Graduate Education
and Research Traineeship (IGERT)
Fellowships
Brandi Clark (NFS Fellow)
David Ray (MultiSTEPS IGERT
Fellowship)
Stephanie Smallegan (NSF Fellow)
G. Allen Bowers (NSF Fellow)
Beena Ajmera (NSF)
Pratt Engineering Fellowships
Pan Ji
Yucheng Huang
Karla Santacruz
Pratt International Study Abroad
Fellowship
Miguel Miranda
VT SuN Interdisciplinary Graduate
Education Program (IGEP)
Pan Ji
William Rhoades
Jacob Metch
J. Waldo Smith Hydraulic Fellowship ASCE
Nikolaos Apsilidis
Walts Graduate Fellowship
Jacob Metch
Abel Wolman Doctoral Fellowship - EPA
Rebecca Halvorson
Woman’s Auxiliary to the American
Institute of Mining, Metallurgical,
and Petroleum Engineers (WAAIME)
Scholarship
Arden Cox
STUDENT NEWS
Ph.D. Degrees awarded
The following doctoral degrees were
awarded to CEE students between
July 2011 and June 2012.
Name: Tiffany E. Adams
Dissertation Title: Stability of Levees and
Floodwalls Supported by Deep-Mixed
Shear Walls: Five Case Studies in the
New Orleans Area
Advisor: George Filz
Name: Randi Hope Brazeau
Dissertation Title: Sustainability of Residential Hot Water Infrastructure: Public
Health, Environmental Impacts, and
Consumer Drivers
Advisor: Marc Edwards
Name: Ahmet Ozan Celik
Dissertation Title: Experimental Investigation of the Role of Instantaneous
Turbulence Fluctuations on Incipient
Motion of Sediment
Advisor: Panos Diplas
Name: Xiaojun Chang
Dissertation Title: Formation of Fullerene Nanoparticles (nC60) in Aqueous
Solutions
Advisor: Peter Vikesland
Name: Benjamin Thomas Cross
Dissertation Title: Structural Performance of High Strength Lightweight
Concrete Pretensioned Bridge Girders
Advisor: Carin Roberts-Wollmann
Name: Francisco Jose Cubas Suazo
Dissertation Title: An Investigation into
the Effects of an External Electron
Acceptor on Nutrient Cycling at the
Sediment-Water Interface of the Occoquan Reservoir
Co-Advisors: Thomas Grizzard and
John Novak
Name: Nicole Leah Fahrenfeld
Dissertation Title: Fate of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) in Historically Contaminated Aquifer Sediments
Co-Advisors: Mark Widdowson and
Amy Pruden
Name: Filippo Giustozzi
Dissertation Title: Life cycle assessment of sustainable road pavements:
carbon footprinting and multi-attribute
analysis
Advisor: Gerardo Flintsch
Name: Soundar S. Govindarajan Balakumaran
Dissertation Title: Corrosion Testing and
Modeling of Chloride-Induced Corrosion Deterioration of Concrete Bridge
Decks
Advisor: Richard Weyers
Name: Matthew Scott Hull
Dissertation Title: Factors Influencing the
Uptake and Fate of Metallic Nanoparticles in Filter-feeding Bivalves
Advisor: Peter Vikesland
Name: Michael Evan Klapmeyer
Dissertation Title: Characterization of
Urban Air Pollutant Emissions by
Eddy Covariance Using a Mobile Flux
Laboratory
Advisor: Linsey Marr
Name: Nopadon Kronprasert
Dissertation Title: Reasoning for Public
Transportation Systems Planning:
Use of Dempster-Shafer Theory of
Evidence
Advisor: Shinya Kikuchi
Name: Saurav Kumar
Dissertation Title: Extending Water Quality Models through an Environmental
Decision Support System to Facilitate
Stakeholder Interaction
Co-Advisors: Adil Godrej and Thomas
Grizzard
Name: Yingmei Liu
Dissertation Title: Effective Modeling of
Nutrient Losses and Nutrient Management Practices in an Agricultural and
Urbanizing Watershed
Advisor: Adil Godrej
Name: Zhe Liu
Dissertation Title: Developing reference
materials for VOC, formaldehyde and
SVOC emissions testing
Advisor: John Little
Name: Michael Patrick McGuire
Dissertation Title: Critical Height and
Surface Deformation of Column-Supported Embankments
Advisor: George Filz
Name: Susan Mirlohi
Dissertation Title: Characterization of
Metallic Flavor in Drinking Water: An
Interdisciplinary Exploration through
Sensory Science, Medicine, Health,
and the Environment
Advisor: Andrea Dietrich
Name: Michael Anthony Mobile
Dissertation Title: Quantification of
Parameters Controlling Rate-limited
Mass Transfer in Models for Contaminant Dissolution and Desorption in
Groundwater
Co-Advisors: Mark Widdowson and
Dan Gallagher
Name: Matthew David Sleep
Dissertation Title: Analysis of Transient
Seepage Through Levees
Advisor: Michael Duncan
Name: Aly Mohamed Aly Tawfik Aly
Ahmed
Dissertation Title: Incorporating Perceptions, Learning Trends, Latent
Classes, and Personality Traits in the
Modeling of Driver Heterogeneity in
Route Choice Behavior
Advisor: Hesham Rakha
Name: Simoni Triantafyllidou
Dissertation Title: Lead (Pb) Contamination of Potable Water: Public Health
Impacts, Galvanic Corrosion and
Quantification Considerations
Advisor: Marc Edwards
Name: Wan Yang
Dissertation Title: Airborne Transmission
of Influenza A Virus in Indoor Environments
Advisor: Linsey Marr
CEE Alumni Board Members
(Fall 2012)
Michael A. Alto
Clark Construction Group, LLC – Bethesda, Md.
Bruce R. Bates
RISA Technologies, LLC – Foothill Ranch, Calif.
Thomas A. Broderick
Loudon Water – Ashburn, Va.
James N. Carter, Jr.
Norfolk Southern Corporation – Atlanta, Ga.
Raymond G. Curry
SMC Concrete Construction, Inc. – Annandale,
Va.
Lisa Decker
The Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. – Baltimore,
Md.
Stephen DeLoach
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – Washington,
D.C.
Brian K. Difenderfer
Virginia Department of Transportation –
Charlottesville, Va.
Richard M. DiSalvo, Jr. (Chair)
Draper Aden Associates – Blacksburg, Va.
John R. Hillman
HC Bridge Company – Wilmette, Ill.
Robert F. Jansen
Jansen Land Consulting – Falls Church, Va.
Meredith Jones
MJ Services, Inc. – Blacksburg, Va.
Govi Kannan
Mack Trucks, Inc. – Greensboro, N.C.
Eric J. Lundberg
Vesper, Inc. – Reston, Va.
Laura J. Morillo
Hilti, Inc. – Fairfax, Va.
Members of the 2012 Civil and Environmental Engineering Advisory
Board, as well as past participants, gather for the fall meeting.
Ann Piazza
L.A. Fuess Partners, Inc. – Dallas, Tex.
Jonathan R. Porter
U.S. Government – McLean, Va.
Brian L. Ramaley
Newport News Waterworks – Newport News,
Va.
Stephen M. Seay
Rinker Design Associates, P.C. – Manassas, Va.
Kord Wissmann
Geopier Foundations – Mooresville, N.C.
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Faculty by Program Area
Vecellio Construction Engineering
and Management Program
• Jesus M. de la Garza, Vecellio Professor and Program
Coordinator
• Michael J. Garvin, Associate Professor *
• Mani Golparvar-Fard, Assistant Professor
• Sunil K. Sinha, Associate Professor
• John E. Taylor, Associate Professor
• Deborah E. Young-Corbett, Assistant Professor *
Environmental and Water Resources
Engineering Program
• Gregory D. Boardman, Professor
• Andrea M. Dietrich, Professor
• Panayiotis Diplas, Professor
• Randel L. Dymond, Associate Professor
• Marc A. Edwards, Charles Lunsford Professor
• Daniel L. Gallagher, Associate Professor
• Adil N. Godrej, Research Associate Professor (NCR)
• Thomas J. Grizzard, Jr., Professor (NCR)
• Erich T. Hester, Assistant Professor
• Jennifer L. Irish, Associate Professor
• William R. Knocke, W. Curtis English Professor
• John C. Little, Charles E. Via, Jr. Professor and Program
Coordinator
• Linsey C. Marr, Associate Professor
• Glenn E. Moglen, Professor (NCR)
• John T. Novak, Nick Prillaman Professor
• Amy J. Pruden, Associate Professor
• Robert Paolo Scardina, Assistant Professor of Practice
• Peter J. Vikesland, Associate Professor
• Mark Widdowson, Assistant Department Head and Professor
• Husen Zhang, Research Assistant Professor
Geotechnical Engineering Program
• Thomas L. Brandon, Associate Professor
• Joseph E. Dove, Research Assistant Professor
• George M. Filz, Assistant Department Head and Charles E.
Via, Jr. Professor
• Russell Green, Associate Professor
• James R. Martin, II, Professor
• Matthew Mauldon, Associate Professor
• C. Guney Olgun, Research Assistant Professor
• Adrian Rodriguez-Marek, Associate Professor and Program
Coordinator
Structural Engineering and Materials Program
• Finley A. Charney, Professor
• Thomas E. Cousins, Professor
• W. Samuel Easterling, Department Head and MontagueBetts Professor of Structural Steel Design
• Matthew R. Eatherton, Assistant Professor
• Zachary C. Grasley, Associate Professor
• Ioannis Koutromanos, Assistant Professor
• Roberto T. Leon, David H. Burrows Professor
• Cristopher D. Moen, Assistant Professor
• Victoria A. Mouras, Assistant Professor of Practice
• Carin L. Roberts-Wollmann, Professor and Program
Coordinator
• Kamal B. Rojiani, Associate Professor
• William J. Wright, Associate Professor
Transportation Infrastructure and Systems
Engineering Program
• Montasir Abbas, Associate Professor
• Thomas A. Dingus, Newport News Shipbuilding / Tenneco
Professor
• Gerardo W. Flintsch, Professor
• Kathleen L. Hancock, Associate Professor (NCR)
• Antoine G. Hobeika, Professor
• Shinya Kikuchi, Charles E. Via, Jr. Professor (NCR)
• Pamela Murray-Tuite, Assistant Professor (NCR)
• Hesham A. Rakha, Professor
• Antonio A. Trani, Professor and Program Coordinator
• Linbing Wang, Professor
Emeritus Faculty
• William E. Cox
• Donald R. Drew
• J. Michael Duncan
• Robert C. Hoehn
• Siegfried M. Holzer
• J. Martin Hughes
• David F. Kibler
• Robert D. Krebs
• Thangavelu Kuppusamy
• James K. Mitchell
• Thomas M. Murray
• Raymond H. Plaut
• Clifford W. Randall
• Dusan Teodorovic
• Michael C. Vorster
• Richard D. Walker
• Richard E. Weyers
• James E. Wiggert
* — Affiliated through the Myers-Lawson School of
Construction
NCR — National Capital Region
PROGRAM AREAS
The Vecellio Construction Engineering
and Management Program
Mani Golpavar-Fard has developed a modeling system that automatically
analyzes physical progress on large-scale construction projects.
The Vecellio Construction Engineering
and Management Program (VCEMP) enjoyed
its best year to date as reflected by the high
number of awards and honors received by its
faculty, students, and alumni.
The highlights included the delivery
of the 25th Annual Peurifoy Construction
Research Award address by Jesus M. de la
Garza at the 2012 Construction Research
Congress.
Also several prestigious awards were
conferred to faculty: ASCE’s 2012 Peurifoy
Construction Research Award to Michael
C. Vorster; the 2011 Best Paper Award from
American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE)
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management to Mani Golparvar-Fard; the 2011
Best Paper Award from PMI’s Project Management Journal to John E. Taylor; and the 2012
Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research to
Jesus M. de la Garza.
Alumni of the program received the
following honors: ASCE’s 2011 Thomas Fitch
Rowland Prize to Gunnar Lucko, an associate professor at Catholic University; ASCE’s
2011 Daniel W. Halpin Award to Vineet
Kamat, an associate professor at the University of Michigan; the Associated Schools of
Construction’s 2012 Regional Teaching Award
to Mehmet E. Ozbek, an assistant professor
at Colorado State University; and the 2012
William States Lee College of Engineering
Graduate Award in Teaching Excellence to
John Hildreth, an assistant professor at the
University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Alumnus James W. Bryant, Jr., a senior
program officer at the Transportation Research
Board was recognized as the Outstanding
Young CEE Alum to VCEMP, and Ozbek
was also honored as an Outstanding Young
VCEMP alumnus.
Six undergraduate Vecellio Scholarships
and two graduate Vecellio Fellowships were
awarded to highly-qualified students who have
demonstrated leadership potential and an
interest in pursuing a career in the construction
industry. These students who were formally
recognized during the proceedings of the
Vecellio Distinguished Lecture are: Akram
Ahmed, Aleksander Leckszas, Patrick Morris,
Cassondra Gorgos, Caitlin Keller, George
Sydnor, Noah Jolley, and Joshua Zilke.
To help bring all these initiatives to fruition, Sandy Simpkins continues to provide
unwavering, essential and extraordinary administrative support to the program, students,
and faculty.
Also, the 2012 Vecellio Distinguished
Lecture was presented by Janice L. Tuchman,
editor-in-chief for Engineering News-Record (see
sidebar story).
As for news from the VCEMP faculty, the
See Construction, page 21
Construction
following paragraphs showcase some of their
activities.
Jesus M. de la Garza, the Vecellio
Professor in Construction Engineering and
Management, was elected to the College of
Fellows in the Construction Management
Association of America (CMAA). He and
John Taylor have been working on a research
project sponsored by the Construction Industry
Institute (CII) aimed at developing a process
to help U.S. firms deploy their best practices in
unfamiliar countries. He is also working with
Mani Golparvar-Fard on a research project
using machine vision algorithms to recognize
highway assets like signs and guardrails. de la
Garza continues to enhance the Construction
Control Techniques course by adding modules
that use state-of-the-art software for linear
scheduling and 4D scheduling. As for service
to the profession, de la Garza is now on his
second year as ASCE’s Journal of Construction
Engineering and Management’s editor-in-chief.
Michael J. Garvin made significant
contributions in all missions of the university.
In teaching, he made improvements to the
Construction Management class by developing
a series of modules to convey the key learning
objectives of the course. He also developed a
new graduate course, Construction Research
Presentation, in the common graduate curriculum of the Myers-Lawson School of Construction. He was also the academic advisor to 39
students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Construction Engineering & Management. In research, he secured a new grant from VDOT to
develop case studies of public-private partnerships and continued with his research funded
by the National Science Foundation (NSF) on
sustainability and capital project portfolios.
Garvin also published three journal papers.
Also, he continues to participate in the European Cooperation in Science and Technology
(COST) Action: Public-Private Partnerships in
Transport – Trends and Theory.
Mani Golparvar-Fard’s research continues on how daily photo collections, site video
streams, and Building Information Models
(BIM) can be used to automatically monitor building and construction performance
metrics. He received several research awards
and funding from the NSF, Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), Mathworks, Allied
Minds, American Association of Railroads,
the Institute of Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS), and the Center for
Innovation in Construction Safety and Health
(CICSH). He published five peer-reviewed
journal publications, 13 refereed conference
publications (10 CEE, three CS, and ECE),
and one peer reviewed report with the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
He filed four provisional patent disclosures, and
presented seven research posters. These publications over the past year were recognized by
the Best Journal Paper award from the ASCE
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management,
first-place Best Poster Award with graduate
student Andrey Dimitrov from the 2012 Construction Research Congress, and second-place
best with graduate student Youngjib Ham
Data Sensing and Analysis paper at the 2012
International Conference on Computing in
Civil Engineering.
Golparvar-Fard graduated six master’s
students (four CEE, one ECE, one ME). He
also joined the editorial board of the ASCE
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
and ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering as assistant specialty editor in “Information
Technology in Construction” and associate
editor respectively. He also served as technical
committee member, data sensing and analysis
track and session chair for 2012 Construction Research Congress, 2012 International
Workshop on Computing in Civil Engineering,
12th and 11th International Conference on
Construction Applications of Virtual Reality (CONVR 2012 and 2011), and the 5th
International Conference on Construction
Engineering and Project Management.
Golparvar-Fard was promoted to the
vice-chair position of the ASCE TTCIT Data
Sensing and Analysis (DSA) committee. He
taught three courses, Construction Management, Construction Performance Improvement, and Visual Sensing for Civil Infrastructure Engineering and Management. Along
with Jules White of electrical and computer
engineering, Golparvar-Fard started a new
spin-off company to transfer the outcome of
the HD4AR interdisciplinary research project
on High Precision Smart Phone Augmented
Reality into a field management software for
construction and facility management, and as
a general-purpose context-aware engineering
solution.
Golparvar-Fard organized and presented
several outreach sessions at the C-Tech2,
NASA Inspire, Imagination summer camps,
and the Transportation Construction Management Institute for K-12 students as well as
AEC/FM professionals.
Victoria Mouras, an assistant professor
of practice, continues to spend her time focusing on undergraduate teaching in the CEM
and SEM program areas. Mouras teaches the
very popular design-elective course on Cost
Estimating and is also coordinating the ABET
evaluation and assessment processes as the
department gets ready for its scheduled review
in 2013.
Sunil Sinha has developed WATERiD
to help the nation address the challenges associated with the aging and deteriorating wastewater and water infrastructure. The Water
Environment Research Foundation (WERF)
has recently launched WATERiD, an on-line
living knowledge base, that permits utilities
to easily share their experiences, information,
and lessons learned in managing the nation’s
water infrastructure. “WATERiD is unique
in that it allows utilities to share their “lessons
learned” and thus avoid repeating mistakes,”
explained Daniel Woltering, WERF Director
of Research.
John E. Taylor joined Virginia Tech in
summer 2011 and has had a very productive
first year. He was selected to receive the Paper
of the Year Award from the Project Management
Journal, presented at the Project Management Institute’s 2012 Research and Education
Conference in Limerick, Ireland. Over the past
year, he and his students have published nine
journal articles in leading journals. Taylor’s
research group at Virginia Tech has grown
to 11 graduate students and two postdoctoral
scholars examining the dynamics of change in
engineering and construction. Taylor launched
a new graduate course in spring 2012 on GlobSee Construction, page 22
Construction
al Virtual Design and Construction to acquaint
students with the challenges and opportunities of working globally. Taylor continues to
serve both industry and academia as academic
liaison of the Construction Industry Institute’s
Globalization Community of Practice and as
editorial board member for three American
Society of Civil Engineers’ journals.
Michael C. Vorster, the David H.
Burrows Professor Emeritus of Construction
Engineering, continues to enjoy retirement by
offering twice a year his very successful Construction Equipment Management Program
(CEMP) course. CEMP is an intensive four-day
residential program especially designed for
equipment managers, financial managers and
operations specialists who seek tools, techniques, and ideas that improve fleet management and increase return on investment. It
builds the confidence and creativity needed to
develop new solutions, innovate and change.
He maintains an active consulting practice.
Deborah Young-Corbett is working to
control environmental contaminants associated
with construction processes and the built environment. In this past year, her research group
performed the work of five funded projects,
four of which dealt with Prevention through
Design (PtD) and one with the control of
environmental risks in public schools. PtD is a
relatively new initiative that attempts to design
out risks associated with equipment, materi-
als, and work systems. In a NIOSH-sponsored
project, her research team designed new equipment solutions for dust control in construction
and an intervention for improving adoption
rates within the industry. In a project sponsored by NSF, a pervasive computing system
was developed for sensing construction worker
exposure to carbon monoxide and wirelessly
summoning assistance in the event of overexposure. She recently received a grant from
NIOSH to develop PtD strategies for health
hazard control in masonry, asphalt roofing, and
welding trades.
Please visit VCEMP on Facebook
@vcempatvt and/or follow us on
Twitter @vcempatvt
2012 Vecellio Distinguished Lecture
was presented by Janice L. Tuchman
TUCHMAN
As editor-in-chief,
Janice L. Tuchman directs
the editorial operations of the
Engineering News-Record enterprise — delivering news and
analysis online, in print and at
events. She works on strategic
planning and develops new
editorial products, projects, and
issues.
Under Tuchman’s leadership, the ENR team won two
prestigious Jesse H. Neal awards in
March 2012. The awards include
Best Website and Best Technical Article for a feature that used
mixed media to bring readers
video and web components as well
as a story in print.
Tuchman is active both in the
construction industry and publishing associations. Last year she was
named to the National Research
Council’s Board on Infrastructure
and the Constructed Environment. In 2010, she was inducted
into the National Academy of
Construction and was appointed
to the Industry Leaders Council
of the American Society of Civil
Engineers. She is a trustee of the
SMPS Foundation and serves on
the Industry Advisory Committee
of the Department of Civil Engi-
neering at Columbia University.
In 2002, she became only the
sixth woman to be elected to
membership in “The Moles,” a
prestigious heavy-construction
industry leaders organization.
She is a member of the editorial committee of American
Business Media.
From her vantage point
as editor-in-chief of Engineering
News-Record, Janice L. Tuchman
sees the construction industry
from high altitude. After covering construction for 35 years,
she also brings perspective to its
challenges and its future. Her
lecture explored five critical
issues challenging the industry
and the nation — from the accelerating pace of technological
change to the country’s stalemate over infrastructure funding to the constantly changing
dynamics of working in an ever
more globalized business.
PROGRAM AREAS
The Environmental and
Water Resouces Program
The Environmental and Water Resources
(EWR) Program remained the seventh ranked
graduate program in environmental engineering
in the nation, according to the annual survey
conducted by U.S. News and World Report. The
superb diligence, commitment, and initiative
responsible for this acknowledgement are attributed to the faculty, staff and students.
The EWR staff supports a growing faculty
of 24, a thriving research program across more
than a dozen labs on campus, 120 graduate and
many undergraduate students. While engaged
in personal development and other paraprofessional activities, the Blacksburg staff coordinated
several events. EWR now hosts two graduate student recruitment events each year, one in the fall
and another in the spring. The spring recruiting
event, which was established by Betty Wingate
(24 years of service), just celebrated its 10th year.
EWR hosts two annual lecture series. Betty
and Beth Lucas (six years of service) arrange
the Annual Clifford W. Randall Lecture Series in
the fall and Merry-Gayle Moeller (13 years
of service) and Lucas arrange the G.V. Logana-
than Lecture in the spring. Moeller and Lucas
organized the CEE department staff ’s retreat
again this year, focusing on unity among coworkers, professional development, and personal
enrichment.
EWR’s two analytical chemists, Julie Petruska (30 years of service) and Jody Smiley
(14 years of service) maintain safe, organized,
and operational labs and are readily available to
direct and assist with their invaluable expertise.
The staff of the Occoquan Laboratory
in Manassas has continued to support a range
of water quality management programs and
research projects in the National Capital Region.
Harry Post and his staff, Doug Holladay,
Mark Lucas, Phil Spellerberg, and George
“Woody” Underwood, have operated a
far-flung hydrology and water quality monitoring network, supporting new research efforts
on nitrate fate and transport in the Occoquan
Reservoir, and starting up two new field studies
to assess the performance of novel storm water
management technologies. Led by Dongmei
Wang, the laboratory team of Curt Eskridge,
Mike Gaal, and Joan Wirt continued to
provide analytical support for all Occoquan
Laboratory projects. The team received notable
recognition in late 2011 when they received
the Virginia Tech staff award for outstanding
performance in labs.
Barb Angelotti and Alicia Tingen
provide key administrative support for all Occoquan Lab programs. Two new staff members
joined the Occoquan Lab in the spring of 2012.
Francisco Cubas and Saurav Kumar recently completed their Ph.D. studies at Virginia
Tech, and have joined the staff as post-doctoral
associates, where they will work to develop their
own research agendas, and to support on-going
research at the lab.
Emeritus Faculty
William Cox is frequently seen in Patton
Hall as, even through retired, he continues to
teach CEE 5364, Water Law.
Robert C. Hoehn still enjoys life in
Blacksburg and continues to support EWR with
visits and lectures.
See Environmental, page 24
Environmental
David Kibler and his wife Susanna are
still in pursuit of the great waterways of the
world. Several years ago, it was Panama Canal
and Yangtze River. More recently, it was Rhone
River in southern France. Last summer it was
down the Amazon. This summer they settled for
an eastern tip of Lake Erie and remnants of the
Erie Canal. The Kiblers are looking forward to
Volga and Baltic cruises in 2013.
Cliff Randall has not let the radiation treatment undergone in the fall of 2011
slow him down. He was present at the Second
Distinguished Clifford W. Randall in November.
He participated at the Chesapeake Bay Program
Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee
(STAC) Workshop on Nutrient Pollution Control, Richmond, Va., on May 16. He developed
Wastewater Treatment Process Design for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Airport for Mexican Consulting Engineering Company in April. Randall is a
real inspiration as he is still traveling and jogging.
Gregory Boardman and his graduate
students completed research projects in three
areas this past year: evaluation of a constructed
wetland, use of denatured ethanol for denitrification, and biological treatment of an industrial
wastewater. Five new projects were initiated in
2012 related to the control of nutrients at an
aquaculture facility, use of glycols for denitrification, capacity of flotation operations to capture
solids for reuse, removal of siloxane from digester gas, and treatment of flowback waters from
shale gas operations. He also chaired and taught
in 14 short courses, is developing two new short
courses, and co-coordinates a monthly, televised
lecture series sponsored by the Virginia Department of Health (VDH). He serves on a National
Energy Technology Laboratory committee, two
VDH advisory committees, the Aquacultural
Engineering Society’s Board of Directors, and
the program committee for the International
Conference on Recirculating Aquaculture. He
gave research presentations in Aberdeen (Scotland), Las Vegas, and Virginia Beach, and the
keynote address at the Virginia Water Environment Association Operations Conference.
Andrea M. Dietrich was active this
year supporting the missions of the department, college, and university to promote science,
technology, engineering and math and health
– or “STEM-H” education. She revised her Introduction to Environmental Engineering course
for undergraduates, taught and advised graduate
students, and maintained a presence in diversity
and the Scieneer Program, a cross fertilization
between engineering and science. Dietrich’s research group had 16 presentations at conferences
with four at the International Water Associating
Symposium in Scotland; they published eight
articles, including a review of global trends and
challenges in water aesthetics. She is a member
of the American Water Works Association Journal
Editorial Advisory Board and in-coming chair of
the International Water Association’s Specialty
Group on Off-Flavors in the Aquatic Environment. At the invitation of the Chinese Academy
of Sciences, she again traveled to China to speak
to and organize training for Chinese engineers,
scientists, and regulators who are responsible for
producing potable water.
Panos Diplas continued his teaching and
research activities in the areas of environmental,
fluvial, and infrastructure hydraulics. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) awarded
him its Einstein Award for his contributions to
soil erosion and river mechanics phenomena and
Sheldon Masters, a doctoral student in civil and environmental engineering,
works on a simulated drinking water distribution system.
Environmental
the Hilgard Prize for the best paper published
in the Journal of Hydraulic Engineering in 2010.
His research, centered in the Baker Environmental Hydraulics Laboratory (www.behl.cee.
vt.edu), focused on numerical modeling of river
flows for stream restoration; scour phenomena
around bridge foundations; design of in-stream
structures for river stability and infrastructure
protection; dam decommissioning; affect dam releases on the Lower Roanoke River bank stability; and the fate of contaminants released from
a containment structure into a riverine system.
NSF, USACE, DOD, NCHRP, and Virginia
Uranium supported these activities. He advised
eight Ph.D.s, and seven master’s students. Four
of them, including one Ph.D., graduated this
year. Diplas is a member of the editorial board
of four journals and the scientific advisory committee of two international conferences.
Randy Dymond remains very active in
both teaching and research efforts in the areas of
land development, urban stormwater modeling,
and geospatial information technology. Three of
his eight graduate students finished this year with
projects ranging from Blacksburg’s Land Cover
Analysis Project to modeling urban storm water
runoff in vegetated swales. Dymond taught
the CEE 4264 Sustainable Land Development
course for the first time this year and is continuing to evolve the course with help from practitioners affiliated with the Land Development
Design Initiative (LDDI). More information
is available at www.lddi.cee.vt.edu. He served
as the faculty coordinator for the 2012 ASCE
Virginias Student Conference this past spring at
Virginia Tech, hosting more than 350 students,
faculty, and judges in a 2½ day massive logistics
effort. Eleven events including the steel bridge
and concrete canoes races were held. Dymond
had one research paper published and has four
additional papers under review.
Marc Edwards and colleague Yanna
Lambrinidou of science technology and society
were awarded a research grant from the NSF
Ethics Education in Science and Engineering
program. The $350,000 grant is entitled “Bridging the Gap Between Engineers and Society:
Learning to Listen.” The principal investigators
(PI) will develop teaching modules to be used
in graduate education at Virginia Tech and
around the country. Edwards is PI of a new
grant through the Water Research Foundation
examining “Water Quality Problems in Green
Buildings.” Edwards won the Alumni Award for
Excellence in Graduate Advising from Virginia
Tech, and is continuing his work with co-director
Amy Pruden to develop capacity for sustainable water research at Virginia Tech through the
Institute for Critical Technology and Applied
Science (ICTAS).
treatment devices. Grizzard is also returning to
some of his earlier research on optimizing the
performance of best management practices in
urban settings – work that will have significance
in the Chesapeake Bay restoration as communities look for cost effective ways to limit nutrient
export to streams. Along with the other staff
at the Occoquan Lab, Grizzard continues the
important work of managing water quality in
the Occoquan Reservoir.
Daniel Gallagher had a successful year
in research and teaching. He is co-PI on a $25
million project funded by USDA to evaluate
risks of E. coli in beef. The project is housed at
University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Virginia Tech
will be developing the risk assessment model for
the project. He and his group received another
USDA project to develop a risk ranking model
of foods for listeriosis. In teaching, Gallagher
was awarded CEE’s G.V. Loganathan Teaching
Award. Gallagher and his students presented
their research at various conferences and to U.S.
government and industry representatives. He
also participated in outreach activities through
making presentations at public meetings.
Erich Hester’s research group continues
to gain momentum. Three master’s students
joined his group that already included a master’s
and a Ph.D. candidate. Research topics ranged
from natural attenuation of contaminants in riverbeds (with Mark Widdowson), stream restoration techniques to mitigate excess nutrients (with
Durelle Scott of biological systems engineering),
and the role of preferential flow paths in solute
migration near streams. Four new journal articles were submitted on these and related topics.
Hester also supervised three NSF-REU students
this summer that assisted with various aspects of
these projects. In support of this research, Hester
was awarded a three-year grant from the NSF’s
Environmental Sustainability program. In the
area of teaching, his new graduate class, Surface
Water-Groundwater Interaction, was approved
as CEE 5344.
This year, Adil Godrej’s group extended
the Occoquan Model they have developed for
applications related to nitrate discharge into the
Occoquan Reservoir under conditions of low
flow and/or storm events. This helped the water
purveyor, Fairfax Water, in developing a plan for
the operation of its newly-installed pure oxygen
reservoir hypolimnetic oxygenation system. It
also enabled the water reclamation facility, Upper Occoquan Service Authority, to get a better
understanding of nitrate dynamics in the Occoquan Reservoir and plan its annual nitrate discharge strategy. Two of Godrej’s Ph.D. students
(one co-advised with Tom Grizzard) graduated
this year. A visiting scholar from Turkey, who will
also work in the water quality modeling area,
arrived in April for a six-month stay. Godrej
continued his work on various local and regional
committees related to water quality.
Tom Grizzard, director of the Occoquan
Laboratory in Manassas, served on an expert
panel for the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation developing an assessment
protocol for manufactured urban storm water
Jennifer L. Irish continued research on
coastal hazards and engineering via four grants
funded by U.S. DOE, NOAA Sea Grant, and
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Major research
accomplishments included development of a
tsunami damage potential index and a statistical method for integrating climate change
in hurricane hazard assessment. Her group
authored four journal papers, and Irish was
invited to present her research at the American
Geophysical Union’s fall meeting. Irish continues
to be highly active with ASCE as secretary of
the Coasts, Oceans, Ports, and Rivers Institute
(COPRI) and as chair of the COPRI Sustainability Committee’s new subcommittee on
Global Climate Change. She is co-editor of the
forthcoming Springer Handbook on Ocean Engineering, Part C: Coastal Design and is a guest editor of
a focus issue on sea-level rise for ASCE’s Journal
of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering.
Environmental
Curt Eskridge is a laboratory specialist who provides analytical support for all of the Occoquan Laboratory projects.
This spring, Irish introduced an undergraduate
course on coastal engineering.
Bill Knocke completed his second year
of a three-year appointment as Virginia Tech’s
Associate Vice President for Research Programs.
He still maintains ties to the EWRE Program in
multiple ways, advising students in the program
as well as teaching his graduate physical-chemical process design course. He also continues to
serve as advisor to all CEE distance learning
students who are enrolled in the Commonwealth
Graduate Engineering Program around Virginia. Knocke’s research work remains focused
heavily on manganese control in drinking water
treatment, with more recent emphasis being
placed on biological methods for accomplishing
manganese removal.
John Little received the 2011 CH2M
Hill/Association of Environmental Engineering
and Science Professors (AEESP) Outstanding
Doctoral Dissertation Award for completing the
top Ph.D. thesis in the environmental science
and engineering field during 2010. Little and
his former Ph.D. student received the award
at the 2011 AEESP Research and Education
Conference in Tampa, Fla. He served as chair
of the International Program Committee for the
Second International Water Association (IWA)
Symposium on Lake and Reservoir Management, held in Granada, Spain in 2011. He was
the founding chair of this IWA Specialist Group,
with a first symposium held in Tainan, Taiwan
in 2009 and a third symposium planned for Adelaide, Australia in 2013. Little served as co-chair
of a workshop, Semi-Volatile Organic Compounds (SVOCs): Mechanisms, Measurements,
Exposure Assessment and Research Priorities,
held at Indoor Air 2011 in Austin, Texas. Little
received the Charles E. Via Jr. Professorship of
Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Linsey Marr’s research group in air
quality engineering is exploring sources,
transformation, and fate of nanomaterials in
the atmosphere; quantification of air pollutant
emissions in urban areas; and transmission of
the flu through the aerosol route. Three Ph.D.
students graduated in 2012, and three new stu-
dents are joining the group to expand research
into long-range transport of pathogens in the
atmosphere and carbon footprinting of construction operations. The group published papers on
the dynamics of the influenza virus in aerosols in
indoor environments and on the characterization
of particles from nanotechnology-based spray
products. Marr was invited to give presentations
on atmospheric transformations of carbonanceous nanomaterials at the American Chemical
Society meeting in San Diego, Calif., and on influenza transmission at the Microbiology of the
Built Environment conference in Boulder, Colo.
The magazine Men’s Health interviewed her on
exposure to air pollutants while running.
Glenn Moglen focuses on areas of land
use change, climate change, flooding, and water
supply. Through support from ICTAS, Moglen
is researching the consequences of joint climate
change and urbanization on water supply in the
Washington D.C. metropolitan area. Moglen is
producing flood estimates for the FEMA map
modernization program in Maryland and has
PROGRAM AREAS
The Geotechnical
Engineering Program
Joe Dove works to improve the engineering behavior of soils.
The past year has been very productive for
the Geotechnical Engineering Program. The
program’s vitality is reflected by the enrollment
of one of its largest master’s classes since its
inception, and by the active participation of its
faculty members in research and service.
The geotechnical faculty has played
very visible roles in leading the assessment of
geotechnical damages from the 2011 magnitude 5.8 Virginia earthquake and other natural
disasters, and as keynote lecturers in national
and international conferences. The Center for
Geotechnical Practice and Research (CGPR)
continues to serve as an important link between
academia and practice. In addition to its annual
meeting, which serves to connect regional and
national members to the geotechnical faculty
and graduating students, the CGPR hosted
a national workshop on the shear strength of
fully softened clays and offered a short course
on Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering. Administrative support to the CGPR is provided
by Lisha Farrier, and to the geotechnical
program by Sandy Simpkins.
The geotechnical faculty continues to be
extremely active in research. The following
paragraphs summarize their research activities.
T.L. Brandon started the academic year
as a member of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Geotechnical Extreme Events
Reconnaissance (GEER) team investigating the
performance of Mississippi River levees during
the flood of 2011. Brandon’s group inspected
levees from New Orleans up to the Mississippi/
Louisiana border. Brandon’s work with the
Corps of Engineers has continued with him
being a member of the group that is rewriting
EM 1110-2-1913 (Design and Construction of
Levees). Other Corps of Engineers sponsored
research includes: analysis of levee underseepage; numerical modeling of the London
Avenue Canal load test; and evaluation of fully
softened shear strengths for levee design. Brandon and Mike Duncan organized
a workshop on the use of fully softened shear
strengths that was held at Virginia Tech in
2011. The workshop involved 57 engineers and
geologists from academia, private consulting
practice, and government agencies; and many
details regarding the measurement and use of
fully softened shear strength were discussed. Professors Brandon and Duncan also taught
a short course on specifying and interpreting
geotechnical tests for S&ME, Inc. in Charlotte,
N.C. Joe Dove continued his collaboration
with Patricia Dove of geosciences and CEE
graduate students in developing novel, biologically inspired methods to improve the engineering behavior of soils. Other areas of active
research include the application of advanced
sensing techniques for site investigation, infrastructure assessment and hazard detection; engineering for sustainable sites; and, bio-inspired
materials. He served the department as one of
the academic advisors for undergraduate majors, and as chair of the curriculum committee.
Mike Duncan, professor emeritus since
2007, works with George Filz as co-director of
the CGPR, and supervises CGPR and departSee Geotechnical, page 28
Geotechnical
ment research projects. During the past year he
co-authored a CGPR report on the importance
of fully softened shear strength in long-term
stability of slopes in clay. He also gave lectures
on mitigation of landslide risk at the international conference on large infrastructure projects that was held to celebrate expansion of the
Panama Canal, and repeated that lecture at the
Virginia Geotechnical Conference in Williamsburg and the Central Pennsylvania Geotechnical Conference in Hershey, Penn.
Most of Duncan’s consulting during the
past year has been involved with dams, including consulting boards for Ashton Dam in Idaho,
Echo Dam in Utah, Wolf Creek Dam in Kentucky, Linville Dam in North Carolina, Merrill
Creek Dam in New Jersey, and Mormon Island
Auxiliary Dam in California.
George Filz’s research projects and
sponsors include: an accessible knowledge
base for soil improvement technologies for
transportation infrastructure renewal (SHRP2);
foundation support for bridge abutments using
mechanically stabilized earth systems (VCTIR/
VDOT); compilation of deep-mixing case
histories (CGPR); and design procedures for
pile-supported floodwalls (NSF, USACE).
Filz made presentations based on his
research at conferences and seminars in Boston,
Mass.; St. Louis, Mo.; Provo, Utah; New
Orleans, La.; and Oakland, Calif. He serves in
the following capacities: assistant CEE department head; director of CGPR; faculty advisor
of the Geotechnical Student Organization;
member of VDOT’s Geotechnical Research
Advisory Committee; member of the ASCE
Geo-Institute Soil Improvement Committee;
and consultant on geotechnical design and
construction projects. His work at the Kennedy
Space Center received the American Society
of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) Florida Project-ofthe-Year Award, and he was inducted into the
CEE Department’s Academy of Distinguished
Alumni.
Russell Green is actively working on
several continuing research projects, as well as a
few new ones. Most notably, Green is continuing his work studying the 2010-2011 Canterbury, New Zealand earthquake sequence.
Because of his efforts in this regard, he was
awarded an Erskine Fellowship by the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, and spent two months there in this capacity giving lectures and performing collaborative
earthquake research. In addition to his family,
Green was accompanied in Christchurch by
one of his Ph.D. students, Brett Maurer, a Via
Fellow, who received an NSF East Asia and
Pacific Summer Institute Fellowship to perform
research on the earthquakes.
Green was awarded a visiting professorship by Chuo University in Tokyo, Japan, and
spent just over two weeks there giving lectures
and visiting sites damaged by the 2011 Tohoku
earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Green
has continued work on three NSF sponsored
projects on the: determination of the seismic
hazard of the mid-west using paleoliquefaction
data; damage detection of buried pipelines
after earthquakes; and the development of an
energy-based liquefaction evaluation procedure; as well as continuing work on a Tennessee
Valley Authority (TVA) project on the dynamic
properties of coal combustion products. The
latter two projects are in collaboration with
Adrian Rodriguez-Marek.
During the past academic year, Professor
Jimmy Martin has been active in teaching,
research, and professional service related to civil
engineering, as well as broader research initiatives related to his position as director of the
Disaster Risk Management Institute at Virginia
Tech (DRM@VT).
Martin led the NSF sponsored geotechnical earthquake reconnaissance of the 2011
magnitude 5.8 Virginia earthquake, focusing on
implications for the seismic design of facilities and lifelines in the Central and Eastern
U.S. This work led to a new NSF sponsored
collaborative study with Lehigh University
researchers to explain regional damage patterns
and the behavior of prominent sites such as the
Washington Monument and the Smithsonian
Institution’s storage complex that suffered significant damage. Martin led NSF investigations
to investigate earthquake performance of sites
in New Zealand and Japan affected by recent
earthquakes.
Building on the research team’s past efforts related to energy piles, Martin is leading
a new three-year project to develop energy pile
technology for Middle East buildings where
cooling demands are extremely high. Focusing on Egypt as a main study area, the project
involves field testing of energy piles installed at
Cairo University, as well as laboratory modeling
of Egyptian clays and advanced numerical
analyses. There will be extensive faculty and
student exchange between Cairo University and
Virginia Tech research personnel.
A major project involving the DRM center includes a new strategic partnership forged
with the World Bank to build regional capacity
for disaster risk reduction in the Middle East.
Via the DRM institute, Virginia Tech will be
the lead university to coordinate disaster-related
research, education, outreach, and policy and
planning to reduce regional disaster losses. The
base of operations and initial focus will be in
Egypt. Efforts will then expand to surrounding
Arabic countries, and eventually include a total
of 57 countries world-wide.
Matthew Mauldon is developing
research related to fluvial rock erosion, together
with geotechnical engineering graduate student
Randall Booker and Panos Diplas, a faculty
member in the environmental program area.
This work has recently included preliminary
flume studies using a model fractured rock material. He also is investigating the use of small,
camera-equipped UAVs (drones) for geotechnical and engineering-geologic characterization of field sites. Mauldon’s work on natural
disasters led to an invited lecture on the topic
of Power Laws and Extreme Events at the Distrital University in Bogota, Colombia. Mauldon
serves on the editorial boards of Rock Mechanics
and Rock Engineering and the Korean Journal of
Civil Engineering.
Emeritus Professor Jim Mitchell continued to serve in an advisory capacity as a member of the research team for the Transportation
Research Board’s Strategic Highway Research
Program 2 project on geotechnical solutions for
soil improvement, rapid embankment construction, and stabilization of the pavement working
platform. He was a member of the National
Academies/National Research Council’s Committee on Induced Seismicity Potential in
Energy Technologies, which assessed the nature
See Geotechnical, page 33
PROGRAM AREAS
The Structural Engineering
and Materials Program
Vickie Mouras is a professor of practice focusing on undergraduate teaching in the SEM and CEM program areas.
The faculty of the Structural Engineering
and Materials (SEM) program continued to excel in teaching, research, and outreach. There
were some changes to the group this year with
the retirement of Richard Weyers, and the
addition of Roberto Leon in January. One of
the year’s highlights was when Leon received
the 2012 Structural Engineering Institute (SEI)
President’s Award in April in recognition of his
exemplary contributions to the success of this
institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). SEM also welcomed two new
faculty in August, Ioannis Koutromanos
and Zach Grasley (see related stories in New
Faculty section).
The SEM graduate program enrolled
more than 80 new and continuing graduate
students, with around 50 of these students par-
ticipating in research. The Thomas M. Murray
Structural Engineering Laboratory is busy with
a large number of projects, involving over 35
graduate and undergraduate students. Management of the crowded lab is handled admirably
by Brett Farmer, Dennis Huffman, and
David Mokarem. Thanks to Mokarem’s
efforts, the lab is now certified to perform
several standard tests related to composite steel
decking.
The following paragraphs provide more
detail about the faculty members’ activities over
the past year.
Finley Charney devoted most of his
research efforts over the past year to two research projects, one supported by the National
Institute for Standards and Technology, and the
other supported by the American Institute of
Steel Construction (AISC). Both projects seek
to develop new structural systems that inherently perform well across a broad spectrum of
seismic demands. He is also working on several
smaller projects, including seismic collapse
analysis of timber arch structures, seismic
behavior of short-period reinforced masonry
structures, analysis of metal building structures,
and development of analytical procedures for
performance-based earthquake engineering.
In the first part of 2012, Charney travelled to universities in Chile and Ecuador for
the purpose of establishing formal research
and teaching relationships. As a result of this
trip, plans are being made for one of Charney’s
Ph.D. students to spend a year at Catholic
University in Santiago, Chile. Charney also
See Structures, page 30
Structural
remains active in outside technical activities,
including several building-code related committees.
Tommy Cousins continues to offer prestressed concrete and bridge design courses and
to focus his research efforts on challenges associated with bridge performance and longevity.
He has concentrated his research efforts on the
projects described below which are all related to
the development and use of high performance
materials in bridges.
Cousins is involved in two Virginia
Department of Transportation (VDOT)
sponsored bridge innovation implementation
projects during the next two years. First, he is
partnering with Carin Roberts-Wollmann and
two graduate students to help VDOT bridge
engineers develop and implement inverted T
beams topped with a cast-in-place deck on a
bridge near Richmond, Va. This style bridge
is an alternative to the traditional adjacent box
beam bridges used in short spans. The inverted
T bridge system should minimize or eliminate
the reflective cracking commonly found in
adjacent box beam bridges. The second project
will use a variation of the Hillman hybrid
composite beam (HCB) on a river crossing near
Fredericksburg, Va. His co-principal investigators are Roberts-Wollmann and Cris Moen.
The Hillman HCB combines fiber reinforced
polymers, concrete, and reinforcement in a
shallow tied arch system that results in a light
weight, pre-fabricated girder. The HCB is an
excellent alternative when speed of construction and long-term durability are project goals.
In a $25 million project, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has contracted
with researchers at the Center for Advanced
Infrastructure and Transportation at Rutgers
University for undertaking a five-year project
to investigate the long-term performance of
bridges. This investigation will be the basis for
future bridge condition assessment and asset
management programs that will be used to
assist managers of the nation’s highway infrastructure in making better decisions in the stewardship of the highway assets. Researchers from
Virginia Transportation Research Council and
Virginia Tech are subcontractors to Rutgers for
this project. The Virginia Tech research team
is lead by Roberts-Wollmann with Cousins and
Moen serving as co-investigators.
Matthew Eatherton’s research group
continues its focus on developing more seismically resilient structures. Earlier this year, Eatherton received the Milek Faculty Fellowship
from the American Institute of Steel Construction. This fellowship was awarded in support of
his research developing steel plate shear walls
systems with geometric patterns cut in the web
plate that produce significantly improved seismic performance and structural efficiency.
Eatherton was also awarded a National
Science Foundation grant to develop and test
a new type of self-centering moment resisting
frame that returns to plumb after an earthquake, and concentrates structural damage in
replaceable elements allowing targeted repair
and continued use of buildings after an earthquake. In addition to his group’s work developing new high performance structural systems,
they are also improving the seismic performance of existing types of structures. His group
is performing full-scale tests on moment frame
connections to investigate whether fasteners
and defects create dangerous fracture potential
during earthquakes. They are also examining
related repair methods. Other active research
projects being conducted by the group include
investigating seismic behavior of cold-formed
steel structures, developing procedures for tightening super high tension bolts, and investigating
seismic response using wavelet transforms.
Eatherton’s research group is also active in
outreach activities and professional committees.
After the magnitude 5.8 Virginia earthquake
last August, Eatherton performed reconnaissance in the epicentral region, documented
structural damage patterns, and talked to
residents about ways to secure their homes
against earthquakes. Eatherton’s research group
supported diversity and outreach initiatives
by hosting learning activities for programs
such as Kids Tech University, C-Tech2, and
the Engineering Open House. This past year
Eatherton also became an active member of
several national committees for building code
development.
Roberto Leon continues his research
work on the seismic performance of structures,
utilization of innovative sensors, and behavior
of steel-concrete composite connections. This
spring he gave a lecture on the performance of
structures during the February 22, 2011 New
Zealand earthquake, which he experienced
personally in Christchurch. At the American
Concrete Institute (ACI) Spring Convention
in Dallas, he focused his talk on reinforced
concrete structures. He spoke on steel structures at the ASCE/SEI Structures Congress
in Chicago, and on masonry structures at the
University of Illinois.
Leon is hiring new graduate students to
work on the performance of steel structures
with innovative energy dissipation systems and
on the behavior of composite connections in
tall buildings. He is now focusing his teaching
efforts in revamping the construction materials
course and its associated laboratories, and has
continued his involvement with numerous technical and administrative committees of ASCE/
SEI and AISC.
Carin Roberts-Wollmann has many
new and ongoing bridge related research
projects funded by the FHWA and the Virginia
Center for Transportation Innovation and
Research. She and Cousins have continued
to develop their field-testing capabilities with
the purchase of a wireless data acquisition
system and a variety of re-usable strain gages
and displacement transducers. This system has
been used on five bridge live load tests over the
course of the year. She is participating in committee activities of the American Concrete Institute, where she is the new chair of Committee 423 – Prestressed Concrete and continues to
help with the building code reorganization as a
member of Sub-Committee 318G. She is also
active in Transportation Research Board, where
she chairs the committee on concrete bridges,
and with the Precast/Prestressed Concrete
Institute. This year she stepped down after
six years as the structures laboratory director,
and she will now serve as the program area
coordinator.
As an assistant professor of practice,
Vickie Mouras continues to spend her time
focusing on undergraduate teaching in the
SEM & CEM program areas.
PROGRAM AREAS
The Transportation
Infrastructure and Systems
Engineering Program
Shinya Kikuchi is the director of the CEE program in the National Capital Region.
The Transportation Infrastructure and
Systems Engineering Program (TISE) had a
very productive academic year. The group
houses several National Centers of Excellence
and conducts research in all modes of transportation except pipelines. TISE is comprised of
10 faculty members and more than 60 graduate
students. The group has representation in both
Blacksburg and the Capital Region campuses.
both nationally and internationally. Abbas is
currently the principal investigator on two newly acquired projects, with total funds slightly
exceeding $475,000. Abbas currently supervises
five graduate students and serves as a member
of several Transportation Research Board
(TRB) committees. He is on a research assignment fall semester at University of CaliforniaBerkeley.
The following paragraphs illustrate salient
accomplishments by faculty, research staff, and
students in the TISE group.
Thomas Dingus, Newport News Shipbuilding Professor and human factors and
safety transportation researcher, directs the
Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI),
comprised of six transportation research centers. VTTI continues to be the largest university-level research center at Virginia Tech with
over $22 million in total expenditures. VTTI
has grown to more than 300 faculty, staff, and
students. This year represents the fifth year that
it conducted research as the National Surface
Transportation Safety Center for Excellence
(NSTSCE), tasked with using research to improve driver safety in both rural and urban
Montasir Abbas, associate professor,
taught two courses: Traffic Engineering and
Traffic Signal Systems Operations and Control,
offered to both graduate and undergraduate
students. Four of his master’s students graduated, with two of them continuing as Ph.D.
students. Abbas and his students published four
peer-reviewed journal papers, 13 peer-reviewed
conference proceedings, and four reports. In
addition, he gave nine invited presentations
communities. This year, new NSTSCE projects,
such as a study on Roadway Lighting Design
and Safety and Naturalistic Observation of
Motorcycle Riders, are underway. VTTI continues to be recognized as a world leader for
offering a “one-stop shop” for transportationrelated research and testing both on Virginia’s
Smart Road as well as in the growing field of
naturalistic driving research. Recent awards to
VTTI include one large National Transportation Center and participation in two regional
transportation centers.
Gerardo Flintsch, professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure (CSTI) at VTTI, has continued to seek innovative solutions for improving
the sustainability, efficiency, reliability, and
resilience of the transportation infrastructure
systems. Among other projects, Flintsch has
initiated a pooled-fund research program, the
National Sustainable Pavement Consortium. It
focuses on enhancing the sustainability of paveSee Transportation, page 32
Transportation
ment materials, systems, and programs. The
consortium completed the assessment of continuous measuring pavement deflection measuring technologies for the Strategic Highway
Reach Program 2 (SHRP 2) of the National
Academy of Sciences, and led efforts to help
VDOT reduce tire-pavement noise, measure
pavement structural condition at the network
level, optimize pavement preservation strategies, and maximize the use of reclaimed asphalt
products in pavements.
He contributed to VTTI’s efforts to secure a University Transportation Center on
Connected Vehicles by investigating the use of
vehicle-based sensor data to assess infrastructure health and level of service. Flintsch organized the 7th Symposium on Pavement Surface
Characteristics of the World Road Association
in Norfolk, Va., and has been selected to chair
the 9th International Conference on Managing
Pavement Assets in Alexandria, Va., in cooperation with FHWA, VDOT, TRB, and American
Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. He also graduated the first CEE
student to receive a dual doctorate from Virginia Tech and the Politecnico di Milano.
Kathleen Hancock, associate professor
and co-director for the Center for Geospatial
Information Technology in the National Capital Region, is blending her research in freight
transportation and planning, highway safety,
and traffic analysis with her work in geospatially
enabling problem solving and decision making.
She is working with the Virginia Department
of Motor Vehicles to geospatially locate every
police-reported crash in Virginia with the goal
of improving the Commonwealth’s ability to
more effectively allocate resources for enforcement, education, and engineering for highway
safety. She continues to actively participate in
the TRB’s Freight Data Committee, including
planning and participating in two workshops
during the past year and editing the resulting
circulars. Hancock spent the summer on an
Interagency Personnel Assignment with the Office of Freight Management and Operations at
the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)
assisting with the Freight Analysis Framework
(FAF) and preparing a strategic plan for the
next generation highway network to support
freight assignment for FAF 4.0. She collabo32 | CEE | VIA REPORT | 2012
rated with Pamela Murray-Tuite on the evacuation study for northern Virginia providing
geographic information systems (GIS) expertise
and functionality to enhance the simulation
results. To make her GIS courses more broadly
available, Hancock has modified them and is
now delivering them on-line, thus making the
accessible to CGEP and off-campus students.
Antoine Hobeika, professor, continued
his research work in testing and improving various FHWA transportation planning software
including TRANSIMS. He taught classes on
transportation planning and land use and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and Introduction to Transportation Engineering.
professionals and students around the world
to Helsinki, Finland, and conducts advanced
courses in contemporary topics in transportation planning. He was the keynote speaker at a
conference on “Advances in Uncertainty Treatment in Transportation Systems Analysis,” held
at the University of Padova, Italy in the fall of
2011. He continues to search for fundamental
properties of uncertainty embedded in transportation phenomena.
Bryan Katz continues to support the
TISE program as an adjunct professor, teaching Introduction to Transportation Engineering
and Geometric Design of Highways. This year,
Katz began preparations to pilot the Introduction to Transportation Engineering course as an
online offering through funding received from
Virginia Tech’s Institute for Distance and Distributed Learning. The course is being taught
during the second summer session of 2012.
Katz continues to bring research experience
into the classroom through his role as a transportation researcher with Science Applications
International Corporation (SAIC). He is currently managing research activities in the Saxton Transportation Operations Laboratory of
the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center
in McLean, Va., where his team is researching
innovative solutions to decrease congestion on
the nation’s roadways. Pamela Murray-Tuite, assistant professor, expanded her work in evacuation, traffic
incident effects, transportation resilience, risk,
and network analysis. In the past year, she
continued working on projects sponsored by
the NSF, the Virginia Center for Transportation Innovation and Research, and Virginia
Tech’s Institute for Critical Technology and
Applied Science. For these projects, she and
her students developed models of evacuation
related behavior, evaluated evacuation management strategies, and identified critical links
and bottlenecks. One of her papers related to
hurricane evacuation behavior modeling was
recognized by the TRB’s Emergency Evacuation Task Force’s as the best paper for 2012.
Murray-Tuite has continued and expanded her
collaborations with social scientists specializing
in disaster behavior. She also supervised a high
school intern last summer. She was recently appointed to the TRB’s Transportation Network
Modeling Committee and developed a related
call for papers. She is also on the executive
editorial board for the Journal of Transportation
Security and continues to review papers for multiple journals and conferences.
Shinya Kikuchi, the Charles E. Via Jr.,
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is the director of the CEE program in
the National Capital Region (NCR). He is also
the chair of Transportation Research Board’s
Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Computation Committee. Kikuchi’s area of interest is in
systems analysis in transportation engineering
with emphasis in urban transportation systems.
He is interested in treatment of uncertainty in
the reason building process in transportation
planning. He has been co-organizing the Helsinki Summer School of Transportation every
year since 2007. This school attracts about 50
Hesham Rakha, together with the research faculty and students at the Center for
Sustainable Mobility (CSM), worked on various
national-level projects sponsored by the FHWA,
the Research and Innovative Technology Administration, the National Highway Traffic
Safety Association, NAVTEQ Inc., VDOT,
SAIC, the Federal Transit Association, and
Harmonia, Inc. In collaboration with the CSM
research faculty and students, Rakha published
10 peer-reviewed journal publications, 19 peerreviewed conference publications, two FHWA
reports, and one Academy of Science report
See Transportation, page 33
Transportation
over the past year. He also made 28 conference
presentations. Rakha also served as an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Intelligent
Transportation Systems and for the Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems. He is a member of
the editorial board of the Transportation Letters:
The International Journal of Transportation Research, and a member of the TRB committee on
Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics. Rakha also delivered a graduate and undergraduate course focusing on comparative transportation issues between the Dominican Republic
and the U.S. The course was taught over the
summer of 2011 at Virginia Tech’s Punta Cana
campus in the Dominican Republic.
Antonio Trani, together with the research faculty and students at the Federal Aviation Administration National Center of Excellence for Aviation Operations Research (NEXTOR 2), worked on various projects sponsored
by the Federal Aviation Administration.
These projects included: studying the impacts of high oil prices in the aviation industry;
developing models to predict cost-benefits of
using satellite-navigation and surveillance to
air navigation service providers and airlines
manage flights across the North Atlantic; and
validating two Federal Aviation Administration
developed computer models that predict airport
capacity and delays.
Geotechnical
and significance of seismic activity caused by
enhanced geothermal systems, carbon capture
and storage, and enhanced oil recovery (including “fracking”) and issued its final report in
June 2012.
Mitchell was a state-of-the-art speaker on
ground improvement at the 2012 ASCE GeoInstitute GeoCongress 2012 in Oakland, Calif.
He presented a one-day short course on ground
improvement at four cities in Australia in May.
His consulting activities included advisory
panels on seismic remediation for two embankment dams in California, the design review
board for a large copper tailings storage facility
in Utah, the board of consultants for embankment seismic improvement of the Bridgewater
hydroelectric project dams in North Carolina,
and service on the Technical Advisory Panel for
the Elliot Bay Seawall Replacement project in
Seattle, Wash.
Guney Olgun has been very active in
the area of geothermal foundations where he
is investigating the use of pile foundations for
heating and cooling of buildings. He is currently leading a project funded by the NSF to
study the performance of geothermal energy
piles through full-scale field tests at five locations across the U.S. and two additional sites
in Egypt and Turkey. As an extension of this
project he is investigating the use of groundsourced heating for deicing of bridge decks. He
is also organizing an international workshop in
Lausanne, Switzerland that will bring together
international experts to discuss the current
status of geothermal foundation systems and
help establish future research needs.
Olgun is leading another research project
funded by NSF to study the use of soil-mix
panel elements for ground reinforcement during earthquakes. This study involves three other
universities where shake table tests, dynamic
centrifuge testing and full-scale field testing will
be conducted.
Adrian Rodriguez-Marek is active
in several projects. These include research
projects, in collaboration with Russell Green,
focused on characterization of the dynamic
Trani and his group at the Air Transportation Systems Laboratory continue development of the TSAM model for NASA Langley
Research Center. Trani and senior research
associates Nick Hinze and Howard Swingle
developed an updated time-space analysis
model to estimate airspace scheduling and airspace training requirements for the Joint Strike
Fighter (JSF).
Trani taught a summer course in Airport
Planning and Design at Virginia Tech’s Punta
Cana campus in the Dominican Republic. The
course was an excellent study-abroad experience for both students and faculty as they had
unlimited access the Punta Cana International.
behavior of coal combustion residuals funded
by the TVA and the CGPR; an NSF funded
project studying an energy-based methodology
for liquefaction assessment; and a CGPR project to provide guidance to regional practitioners
on liquefaction assessment procedures. He is
leading a team of five universities in an NSF
sponsored project studying the effects of surface
topography on strong ground motions using
physical modeling in a geotechnical centrifuge
along with numerical modeling and empirical
analyses of recorded data. He is advancing his
research on probabilistic seismic hazard assessment methods in a collaborative project with
faculty from the University Joseph Fourier in
Grenoble, France. He has actively participated
in various seismic hazard assessment projects
for nuclear power plants in Switzerland, South
Africa, and various locations in the U.S.
KOUTROMANOS (Continued from page 12)
earthquake engineering, geotechnical earthquake engineering and engineering seismology.
He has also worked as a professional engineer on the seismic evaluation and retrofit of
existing reinforced concrete buildings in Greece, using both conventional techniques (such as
concrete jackets) as well as techniques based on the use of high-performance, fiber-reinforced
polymeric materials.
He is a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece (of which he has received awards of
Academic Excellence from 2004 through 2006) and of the Hellenic Society of Civil Engineers.
Environmental
developed a web site to allow tailored analyses of
flooding and nutrient loading behavior for future
land use change on the DelMarVa Peninsula.
Inspired by his instruction of CEE 4324/5984
– Open Channel Flow, Moglen is planning to
write a book on this topic. A unique feature of
this planned work will be a series of approximately 20 computer-generated animations that
illustrate the dynamics of various open channel
flow phenomena. Moglen re-upped for service as
an officer on the ASCE Watershed Management
technical committee (currently both secretary
and past-chair) and is completing a five-year run
as an associate editor on the ASCE Journal of
Hydrologic Engineering.
John Novak and his students are
investigating wastewater treatment, anaerobic
digestion, and solid waste management. He and
his students were coauthors of three papers that
were presented at the annual Water Environment Federation meeting in Los Angeles. He also
presented a keynote address at the Australian
Water Association Sludge Conference in Gold
Coast, Australia. He and his students presented
five papers at the Residuals and Biosolids Management Conference in Raleigh, N.C., and he
presented a paper at the WEF Odors Conference in Louisville, Ken. Research continued
with projects supported by D.C. Water &
Sewer Authority, Bucknell University, the Water
Environment Research Foundation and Waste
Management, Inc. Six papers were published in
research journals and nine papers were included
in conference proceeding. Novak served as the
advisor for eight graduate students this past year.
He serves as an associate editor for the journal,
Water Environment Research.
Amy Pruden participated in a landmark
Pellston Workshop in which she gathered with
40 international leaders in science, industry, and
medicine to develop a consensus statement on
the urgency of quantifying and mitigating risks
of environmental pathways of antibiotic resistance to human health. She then led a workshop
of her own, along with Marc Edwards and Joe
Falkinham, sponsored by the Water Research
Foundation and ICTAS on opportunistic pathogens in premise plumbing (e.g., Legionnaire’s
disease). NSF funded a new grant for Pruden
and Peter Vikesland on advancing water pathogen detection using aptamer-functionalized gold
nanoparticles. She and Mike Hochella received
a grant from the Department of Energy on microbe-framboidal pyrite interactions involved in
the clean-up of uranium contamination. Pruden
also enjoyed teaching CEE 5194 Environmental
Engineering Microbiology, conducting community education activities on oil-spill clean-up, and
seeing her first Ph.D. student at Virginia Tech
successfully defend her dissertation.
Paolo Scardina is instructing a number
of environmental water resources courses at a
level that exceeds the normal university require-
GRASLEY (Continued from page 12)
Among his honors, Grasley was an
invited participant to the National Academy
of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering
Education in 2011. He received the Texas
Engineering Experiment Station (TEES)
Select Young Faculty Award for 2011 and the
Zachry Award for Teaching Excellence in
2010. As a student in 2005, Grasley earned
the Department of Transportation Federal
Aviation Administration’s Center of Excellence Outstanding Student of the Year award.
He is currently the associate journal
editor of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, and he serves as a reviewer for a host
of publications in his field. He is the immediate past chair of the Cements Division of the
American Ceramic Society (ACerS). He is a
member of ASCE, the American Society of
Engineering Education, ACerS, American
Concrete Institute International, Chi Epsilon
and Phi Kappa Phi Honor Societies, and the
Transportation Research Board.
Grasley received his master’s and
doctoral degrees in civil engineering from the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
in 2003 and in 2006, respectively. He earned
his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering
graduating summa cum laude in 2001 from
Michigan Technological University.
ment. Scardina also became the new faculty adviser to the Virginia Tech ASCE student chapter.
Virginia Tech was also host school for the recent
annual ASCE regional Virginias’ Conference,
for which Scardina was an active organizer and
participant. Recent research activities have been
associated with processes associated with deep
well natural gas drilling in the Marcellus shale
region of the United States.
Peter Vikesland served as the UPS
Foundation Visiting Associate Professor of Civil
and Environmental Engineering at Stanford
University during the spring and summer. While
at Stanford, Vikesland taught a course and interacted with the Stanford Environmental Engineering faculty. Vikesland and his group focused
their research on developing nanomaterial based
sensors for environmental contaminants. He
received funding from NSF and the William and
Melinda Gates Foundation. In the former study,
the Vikesland and Pruden groups are collaborating to develop a sensor for antibiotic resistant
bacteria; in the latter effort Vikesland and his
colleagues (including former Via Scholar Krista
Rule Wigginton) are developing low-cost sensors
for poliovirus. During 2011-2012, the Vikesland
group published seven research papers and gave
10 presentations at national and international
meetings.
On the heels of a successful faculty-led
study abroad program in 2011 at the Virginia
Tech Caribbean Center for Education and
Research, Mark Widdowson and John Novak
returned in 2012 to teach a five-week course
on water resources management in the Punta
Cana region of the Dominican Republic. Widdowson and colleagues presented papers at the
International Conference on Chlorinated and
Recalcitrant Compounds and the Remediation Technology Summit. At the latter, he was
coauthor of the paper poster presentation. Widdowson and Amy Pruden published the results
of their research on the 2010 Gulf of Mexico
oil spill in the journal Environmental Science and
Technology. In addition, Widdowson continued
administrative duties as assistant department
head, including efforts to expand international
programs in CEE.
Meet the Via Scholars
T
he following pages highlight some of the country’s most
exceptional students and alumni, the Via Scholars.
The motivation and aspirations of this group reflect a
profound curiosity and desire to improve the quality of life around
the world — from helping municipalities manage growth, to the
aesthetics of structures, the quality of water, and international
development.
The Via scholarships are made possible through the generosity
of the late Mrs. Marion Bradley Via of Roanoke, Va., and her
family. In 1987, Mrs. Via contributed $5 million each to the
Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Civil
and Environmental Engineering. Virginia Tech’s Board of Visitors
subsequently named the ECE department in honor of Mrs. Via’s
deceased father, Harry Lynde Bradley, and the CEE department in
honor of her late husband, Charles E. Via, Jr. Mrs. Via died in 1993.
Both departments use a portion of the endowment to award
scholarships to qualifying students. These scholarships are among
the most competitive in the country. Since the Via endowment
was created in 1987, the department has awarded more than $16
million in scholarships and fellowships.
Via Scholars: Master’s Students
Shainur Ahsan
Hometown: Mt. Olive, Ala.
Location of Undergraduate Studies:
Auburn University
Awards/Recognitions: Graduated
Summa Cum Laude; Civil Engineering Department Outstanding Student
Award (2009); 2010 Southeast
ASCE Conference Co-Chairman; Chi
Epsilon; Honor’s College; Cupola Engineering Ambassadors; Phi Kappa
Phi Freshman Achievement Award
Primary Area of Interest: Structures
Outside Work Experience: North
Carolina Department of Transportation – Summer Engineer’s Assistant;
NSF REU Program at University of
Houston in Structures
Career Goals: After obtaining my
master’s, I hope to join a structural
design firm and work on large-scale
projects. I will also plan to obtain my
PE license to become a professional
engineer.
Kevin Aswegan
Hometown: Fredericksburg, Va.
Virginia Tech
Summa Cum Laude; Chi Epsilon;
Phi Kappa Phi; Hankins & Anderson
Scholarship; James K. Anderson
Scholarship; William Industries
Award; Hobart Speegle, Jr. Scholarship; Peter & Phyllis Pruden Scholarship; Aldredge Scholarship; Warren
F. Cline Scholarship; English Family
Professor Librescu Scholarship
Outside Work Experience: Structural
Engineering Intern, H&A Architects &
Engineers; Civil Engineering Intern,
Bowman Consulting; Residential
Home Framer, E-Squared, Inc.
Career Goals: After obtaining my master’s, I hope to be employed by a top
design firm working on high profile
projects. My goal is to become a P.E.
and afterwards return to school for
my MBA. Ultimately, I plan to start
and run my own successful business.
William G. Ayers
Hometown: Warrenton, Va.
Virginia Tech
Awards/Recognitions: Salutatorian,
Virginia Tech Civil & Environmental
Engineering Class of 2012; Pacific
Crest Trail Thru Hiker Class of 2007
Primary Area of Interest: Environmental
and Water Resources
Outside Work Experience: Water Quality
Technician, U.S. Geological Survey;
Quality Control Technician, STG Inc.;
Land Development Intern, Bowman
Engineering
Career Goals: My initial goal after graduating is to complete the requirements
for becoming a licensed professional
engineer. I plan to work in private
industry to acquire the skills and
experience necessary for becoming
an integral player in the land development and environmental engineering
fields. Ultimately, I aim to use my
skills and experience to pursue business ownership and entrepreneurial
ventures.
David Azinheira
Hometown: Dartmouth, Mass.
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Awards/Recognitions: Graduated Summa Cum Laude with departmental
honors in Civil Engineering; member
of Commonwealth Honors College,
Chi Epsilon, and Alpha Lambda Delta
Honor Society; recipient of 20102011 NEWEA Student Scholarship;
2011 Selig Scholarship; 2010 APWA
Timothy J. O’Leary Scholarship; 2009
NEWWA Watters Scholarship; and
2009 MCAP Scholarship.
and Water Resources
Outside Work Experience: Summer
Internships at CDM (Water Resources Group); Woodard and Curran
(Land Development and Hydrology);
VHB (Structural & Transportation
Engineering); Town of Dartmouth
Engineering Department
Career Goals: Following the completion of my master’s degree I hope to
attain a position at a consulting firm
focusing on water resources. I am
particularly interested in working with
flood mapping, river flow modeling,
and/or groundwater modeling.
Sasha Bajzek
Hometown: Tinley Park, Ill.
Location of Undergraduate Studies: Illinois Institute of Technology
Summa Cum Laude; Dean’s List all
semesters; Tau Beta Pi member; 2009
ASCE IL Structural Group Scholarship; First Place 2005 International
Bridge Building Competition; Camras
Scholarship
Outside Work Experience: Structural/Civil
Engineering Intern at Teng & Associates
Career Goals: My goal is to design
bridges that are elegant, efficient, and
structurally sound. Upon completing
my master’s degree, my goal is to
work for an innovative engineering
firm that strives to incorporate new,
sustainable technology in its design
projects.
G. Allen Bowers
Hometown: Woodstock, Va.
Virginia Tech
Awards/Recognitions: National Science
Foundation Graduate Research
Fellowship; Virginia Tech College of
Engineering First in Class (2012);
Civil Engineering Outstanding Senior
(2012); Civil Engineering Valedictorian (2012); Member Phi Beta Kappa;
Byron and Helen Brumback Scholarship
Primary Area of Interest: Geotechnical
Outside Work Experience: Research
assistant working on integrating geothermal energy and bridge foundations supported by the NSF, REHAU,
and the Deep Foundations Institute
Career Goals: I desire to acquire a
Ph.D. in civil engineering and focus
my research on creating long-lasting
and sustainable structures. Upon
graduation I would like to enter practice and obtain my P.E. I ultimately
desire to use my education to glorify
God and serve others as a missionary, practicing engineer, and/or an
academic professor.
David Burchnall
Hometown: West Chester, Ohio
The Ohio State University
Summa Cum Laude; member of Chi
Epsilon, Tau Beta Pi, and ASCE;
Dean’s List, all quarters; OSU William D. Apple Scholar; OSU Robert
H. Simpson Scholar; OSU Mount
Leadership and Service Scholar
Program Graduate
Outside Work Experience: Engineering Intern at Duke Energy’s McGuire
Nuclear Station in Huntersville, N.C.
– first summer with civil design/modification team, second summer with
plant-side support team evaluating
buried pipes; OSU undergraduate
teaching assistant in civil engineering
Career Goals: Upon receiving my
master’s degree, I plan on working
for a structural analysis and design
firm that uses the latest technology
to develop innovative and efficient
solutions to meet a large depth and
breadth of diverse clients’ needs.
I plan on completing the Professional Engineering requirements. My
ultimate goal is to become a principal
engineer, fellow or partner in an
innovative consulting engineering
firm or engineering department of a
larger company/bureau.
Jacob A. Buttz
Hometown: St. Johns, Fla.
Virginia Tech
Awards/Recognitions: Dean’s list all
semesters at Virginia Tech; Graduated top 25 in the Civil Engineering
undergraduate class; Warren F. Cline
Scholar; Member of Tau Beta Pi and
Theta Tau
Outside Work Experience: Project
manager intern with Kroger Facility
Engineering
Career Goals: Upon graduating with
my master’s, I plan on obtaining my
P.E. and working for a firm that deals
primarily with earthquake engineering
design and testing. Eventually I want
to return to complete my Ph.D. to
perform research and teach.
W. Lake Carter
Hometown: Newport News, Va.
Virginia Tech
Summa Cum Laude; Dean’s list all
eight semesters; recipient of Lingerfelt Family Foundation Scholarship
(2011-2012), Vecellio Scholarship
(2010-2011), V.C. & J.N. Williamson
Scholarship (2009-2010)
Outside Work Experience: Summer
Internship with Geopier Foundation
Company; Internship with U.S Army
Corps of Engineers
Career Goals: I want to obtain my master’s degree and subsequently pursue
a career as a licensed professional
engineer. I hope to contribute my
knowledge and experience to the innovation of the geotechnical industry.
Adam DePoy
Hometown: Grand Rapids, Mich.
Trine University
Awards/Recognitions: Kunti and Satish
Goyal Outstanding Civil Engineering Award; President’s List for eight
semesters; Graduated Summa Cum
Laude with 4.0 GPA
Outside Work Experience: EKG Technician
Career Goals: I plan to obtain my master’s degree and LEED certification.
Victoria Wheaton Hoyland
Hometown: Fairmont, W.Va.
West Virginia University
Awards and Recognitions: 2009-2010
Outstanding Senior, WVU Civil
Engineering; Summa Cum Laude
graduate; President’s List all semesters; Member of Tau Beta Pi and Chi
Epsilon; First Place Graduate Student
Poster 2012 VT CEE Research Day;
WVU Promise Scholar; WVU Presidential Scholarship; Bjornson Scholarship; Homer P. Nutter Scholarship;
Robert O. Orders Scholarship; Ralph
M. Barnes Scholarship; Dominion
Diversity Scholarship
and Water Resources
Outside Work Experience: Environmental Projects and Engineering Intern
for Dominion; Research Assistant for
West Virginia University Department
of Plant and Soil Sciences
Career Goals: Following graduation, I
would like to practice environmental
engineering either through research,
consulting, or governmental work. I
plan to obtain my P.E. and possibly
pursue a Ph.D. in the future.
Patrick Joyce
Hometown: Ashland, Penn.
Virginia Tech
Awards and Recognitions: Graduated
Summa Cum Laude; Dean’s List,
all semesters; Engineer-In-Training
Certification; ASCE Member; Virginia
Transportation Construction Alliance
Scholarship 2012, 2011; Simpson
Strong Tie Structural Scholarship
2012, 2011; National Asphalt Paving
Association Scholarship 2011, 2010
Outside Work Experience: Internship
with HNTB Corporation (May 2012Aug. 2012); Internship with Pennsylvania Department of Transportation
(May 2011-Aug. 2011, May 2009Aug. 2009); Internship with Gannett
Fleming (Dec. 2011-Jan. 2012, May
2010-Aug. 2010)
Career Goals: After I obtain my master’s
degree, I plan to work for a structural
engineering firm where I hope to design large and innovative structures.
I also want to become a Professional Engineer in hopes of being the
lead design engineer on structural
projects.
Andrew Kost
Hometown: Aloha, Ore.
University of Portland
Awards/Recognitions: Outstanding
Civil Engineering Student, graduated
Maxima Cum Laude, member of Tau
Beta Pi, President’s Scholarship,
National Alumni Board Scholarship
Outside Work Experience: Laboratory
Technician with Professional Service
Industries, Inc. (PSI), and intern with
Cornforth Consultants, Inc., a small
firm specializing in landslides and
rock slides
Career Goals: Following completion
of my master’s degree, I will pursue
my P.E. and a consulting job with a
geotechnical engineering firm, perhaps in my native Northwest. I also
would look for an opportunity to assist
in providing engineering services to
developing nations.
Michael Nolden
Hometown: Philadelphia, Penn.
Location of Undergraduate Studies: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Awards/Recognitions: Virginia Tech
Geotechnical Student Organization,
President; Chi Epsilon, President;
Graduated Summa Cum Laude;
James M. Smith ’67 Scholarship;
Departmental Honors
Outside Work Experience: Pennsylvania
Department of Transportation, Summer Intern
Career Goals: After receiving my master’s degree, I plan to pursue a career
as a Professional Engineer. I hope to
use my experience and education to
play a role in the rehabilitation of the
nation’s infrastructure and to contribute to projects focused on the development sustainable energy sources. I
would like to earn a law degree some
time during my career.
Caitlin Proctor
Hometown: Stafford, Va.
Virginia Tech
Awards/Recognitions: Via Stewart
Scholarship, full undergraduate tuition
coverage (2008-2012); Ralph & William Hodges Memorial Scholarship
(2011-2012); Byron M. and Helen S.
Brumback Scholarship (2010-2011);
Pamplin Leadership Award (20082009); Pauly Scholarship for General
Engineering (2008-2009); Presidential
Alumni Scholarship (2008-2011);
National Foundation of Ectodermal
Dysplasia Scholarship (2008); Dean’s
List (2008-2011)
and Water Resources
Outside Work Experience: Undergraduate Research under Dr. Amy Pruden
(2012); Grader for AutoCad Class,
Virginia Tech (2010-2012); Undergraduate research under Matt Hull;
Intern, Research Assistant, Mastel-Da
LLC, Environmental Consulting Firm,
Fredericksburg, Va.
Career Goals: I will likely pursue my
Ph.D. after my master’s degree and
perhaps get into water/wastewater
consulting.
Rachel M. Sellaro
Hometown: Morgantown, W.Va.
West Virginia University
Awards/Recognitions: BS in Civil
Engineering and Mining Engineering; Summa Cum Laude; Tau Beta
Pi; Associate Editor of Chi Epsilon;
Dean’s List all semesters; WAAIME
Scholarship; WVU Engineering Science and Technology Scholarship;
WVU Foundation Scholarship; Best
Leadership Award for Chi Omega
Sorority; Treasurer of Chi Omega;
and Treasurer of Society of Mining
Engineers
and Water Resources
with the U.S. Department of Energy
at the National Energy Technology
Laboratory; Internship with CONSOL
Energy for two summers at Blacksville No. 2 Mine; Environmental
Engineering Co-op with Patriot Coal
Career Goals: After completing my
master’s degree, I would like to work
within the coal industry as an environmental engineer. I will also work
toward obtaining my P.E. license, and
consider furthering my education by
pursuing a Ph.D.
Frank Smith
Hometown: Poplar Bluff, Mo.
Location of Undergraduate Studies: Missouri University of Science and Technology
Awards/Recognitions: Chi Epsilon;
Tau Beta Pi; Summa Cum Laude;
Missouri S&T Chancellor’s Scholarship; Engineer-In-Training; LEED
Green Associate
Outside Work Experience: Civil engineering intern, Smith & Co. Engineers, Poplar Bluff, Mo.; product development intern, Ruskin Company,
Grandview, Mo.
Career Goals: I am determined to play
a role in holistic building design and
lead a career devoted to building system integration, sustainable design,
and high performance buildings. I
plan to become a Professional Engineer and LEED Accredited Professional.
Justin St. Clair
Hometown: Catawba, Va.
Virginia Tech
Summa Cum Laude; Civil & Environmental Engineering Department Valedictorian; Dean’s List with Distinction,
all semesters; Harry & Patsy Williams
Scholarship; Byron & Helen Brumback Scholarship; Steven Robertson
Memorial Scholarship; Edna Bailey
Sussman Fellowship
& Water Resources
Outside Work Experience: Intern for
failure analysis at ITT Industries Night
Vision, Roanoke, Va.; Engineer technician and survey technician at ACS
Design, LLC., Roanoke, Va.; Breakell
Inc., Roanoke, Va.
Career Goals: Upon receiving my
master’s degree, I plan to work for
an environmental consulting firm
developing innovative and sustainable solutions while gaining experience toward becoming a professional
engineer. After building a breadth of
knowledge and experience, I would
like to start my own consulting firm.
Nicholas Taylor
Hometown: San Antonio, Texas
University of Texas, San Antonio
Summa Cum Laude; 2011; ASCE
Outstanding Civil Engineering Student; Tau Beta Pi member
and Water Resources
Outside Work Experience: Student
Assistant, UTSA Admissions Office;
Engineering Intern, Arkwood Engineering Inc.
Career Goals: I intend to work as a
water resources engineer after
graduation, either in research or as a
project engineer. Additionally, I plan
to obtain my P.E. license and LEED
certification.
Bradley Toellner
Hometown: Sedalia, Mo.
Texas A&M University
Summa Cum Laude; #1 Outstanding
Junior, Dwight Look College of Engineering; Dean’s List, all semesters;
President’s Endowed Scholar, all
semesters
Outside Work Experience: Four-time
Co-op at NASA Johnson Space Center: Capsule Reentry Analyst, Space
Shuttle & Space Station Flight Schedule Planner (two summers), EVA Systems Instructor; Intern at A. Zahner
Company, specializing in architectural
metal design and fabrication
Career Goals: I want to bridge the gap
between engineering and architecture. I would like to place myself in
a role where I can contribute to the
practical design of a structure while
acknowledging the aesthetic aspects
of the overall project.
Christopher Tomlinson
Hometown: Bellmawr, N.J.
Rowan University
Awards/Recognitions: NJAPA Michael
Manno Scholarship, Undergraduate
Research Award, Rowan University
Top Civil Engineer, Tau Beta Pi member, graduated Magna Cum Laude
in civil engineering, Rowan Scholars Program, Trustee Scholarship,
Dean’s List every semester at Rowan
University
Primary Area of Interest: Transportation
and Infrastructure Systems
Outside Work Experience: Rowan
University undergraduate research
assistant – worked on a variety of
projects for the NJDOT and FAA in
addition to being part of a team that
helped survey the city of Camden.
During the school year I was a laboratory/teacher’s assistant.
Career Goals: Upon completion of my
master’s degree, I plan on moving
back to New Jersey and transitioning
into a job in Christian ministry. I plan
on working in some type of youth
outreach ministry (i.e. Campus Crusades) to try and reach, inspire, and
help out future generations.
Stephen Van Nosdall
Hometown: Howell, N.J.
Bucknell University
Awards/Recognitions: Jai B. Kim Prize
in Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2011; Graduated Summa Cum
Laude; Engineering Dean’s List Every
Semester; Dean’s Scholarship; Member of Chi Epsilon and Tau Beta Pi
Outside Work Experience: Worked
for NIOSH to help create academic
materials for incorporating Prevention
through Design topics into structures
courses; co-authored technical paper
on Transportation Engineering methods for calculating permitted left turn
capacity at signalized intersections;
ride manager at Six Flags Great
Adventure theme park
Career Goals: I would like to become
a licensed P.E. working for a roller
coaster design firm. Ultimately, I’d like
to be able to ride a roller coaster that
I helped design, and see other people
enjoying it as well.
Scott Williams
Hometown: Auburn, Wash.
Washington State University, Pacific
Lutheran University
Awards/Recognitions: Engineer In
Training; Member of Tau Beta Pi
Engineering Honors Society, inducted
December 2010; WSU President’s
Honor Roll: Spring 2012, Fall/Summer/Spring 2011, Fall 2012; PLU
Dean’s List Spring 2010, Fall/Spring
2009; Graduated Summa Cum
Laude; Eagle Scout
Outside Work Experience: Structural
Intern at Pacific Northwest Engineering, summer 2012, summer 2011
Career Goals: I dream of becoming
an influential designer of complex
structures, going beyond common
architecture by having a complete
understanding of applied loads and
how the transfer through building,
while optimizing the strengths and
weakness of each structural material.
Katie Young
Hometown: Rochester, N.Y.
Virginia Tech
Awards/Recognitions: Virginia Tech
Dean’s List (Fall 2008, Spring 2009,
Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010);
ITT Industries Scholarship (20082012); Civil Engineering Alumni
Advisory Board Scholarship (2010);
Joseph & Jane Christenbury Scholarship (2010); Kenneth R. Ayers ’80
Memorial Scholarship (2010); William
Industries Scholarship (2009); Gilbert
L & Lucille Seay Scholarship (2009);
First Union Employees Scholarship
(2008); Richard C Mack Memorial
Scholarship (2008)
and Water Resources
Outside Work Experience: Virginia
Tech, assisted with research projects
on Hyporheic Exchange in Streams
(Spring 2011-present) and Wastewater Treatment (Fall 2009-Summer
2011); NSF Research Experience
for Undergraduates at University of
Kentucky, researched Appalachian
Headwaters (Summer 2010)
Career Goals: It is my personal and
professional goal to assist in fixing
U.S. and world water quantity, water
quality, and water transportation
issues so that everyone can have
access to safe and plentiful sources
of fresh water.
Via Scholars: Doctoral Students
Beena Ajmera
Hometown: Ontario, Calif.
California State University, Fullerton
Location of Master’s Studies: California
State University, Fullerton
Magma Cum Laude with B.S. in
Civil Engineering and B.A. in Applied
Mathematics in 3.5 years; National
Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow; Dwight D. Eisenhower
Transportation Fellow (2009-2010
2010-2011); Civil Engineering Fellow at CSUF; Outstanding Junior
(2008-2009), Outstanding Senior
(2009-2010) and Outstanding
Graduating Senior (2010-2011) for
Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at California State
University, Fullerton (CSUF); 2010
Outstanding Engineering Student by
Orange County Engineering Council;
2010 Orange Country ASCE Branch
Scholarship Recipient; ASCE Jeffery
Gordon Scholarship Recipient; Los
Angeles Section Geotechnical Engineering Group Scholarship Recipient;
California Pre-Doctoral (Sally Casanova) Scholarship Program Honorable Mention; National First Place
in ASCE Geo-Institute (GI) Annual
Student Poster Competition (2010);
First Place (2010) and Second Place
(2012) in California State University
Wide Student Research Competition;
Third Place in ASCE GI GeoPredicContinued on page 53
James M. Bryce
Hometown: Springfield, Mo.
University of Missouri – Columbia
Location of Masters Studies: Virginia
Tech
Awards/Recognitions: 2011/2012 and
2012/2013 Dwight D. Eisenhower
Fellow, Via Fellow for Master’s Degree at Virginia Tech, Graduated
Magna Cum Laude and Honors
Scholar from the University of Missouri, Member of Tau Beta Pi and Chi
Epsilon Honors Societies, Selected to
the WISE Internship in 2008.
Primary Area of Interest: Transportation
& Infrastructure Systems
Outside Work Experience: Midwest Environmental Consultants Intern; WISE
Intern – Worked with policy makers in
the field of sustainable transportation
infrastructure; Mettemeyer Engineering LLC as a structural design engineer on small to midsize structures
(hospitals, retail, etc.)
Career Goals: I plan to continue a
research track either through an
academic position, or a position in
industry with the goal of continuing
the development of sustainable and
cost effective means for managing
infrastructure. I have a strong desire
to work with agencies in developing
countries to help them better manage
their transportation assets, as well as
a strong interest in teaching undergraduate and graduate students at
the university level.
Brandi Clark
Hometown: Westervelt, Ill.
Missouri University of Science and
Technology
Location of Master’s Studies: Virginia
Tech
Awards/Recognitions: NSF Graduate
Research Fellowship, EPA GRO
Fellow; Barry M. Goldwater Scholar;
EWRI Undergraduate Technical Paper Contest – First Place; American
Chemical Society (ACS) Student
Affiliates Leadership Award; OURE
Fellow; Missouri S&T Writing Contest– First Place, technical writing,
First Place, research paper; Missouri
S&T Excellence Scholarship; Missouri S&T Excellence Scholarship II;
Alumni Scholarship; Missouri S&T
Grant; Robert C. Byrd Scholarship;
Missouri S&T Chemistry Department
Scholarship; Outstanding Freshman,
Sophomore, Junior, Senior Chemistry Student; Dean’s List; Academic
Scholars
and Water Resources
Outside Work Experience: EPA GRO
Fellowship; EPA Internship at Andrew
W. Breidenbach Environmental
Research Center in Cincinnati, Ohio
(NRMRL/WSWRD); Missouri S&T
OURE Fellows Program; Virginia
Tech Laboratory Assistant; Missouri
S&T Opportunities for Undergraduate Research Experience (OURE)
Continued on page 54
William Norfleet Collins
Hometown: Chesterfield, Va.
Virginia Tech
Tech
Awards and Recognitions: James R.
Reeves Scholarship; Civil Engineering Alumni Advisory Board Scholarship; William A. Caruthers, Jr. Scholarship; Big East Academic All Star
Team; Virginia Tech Track and Field
Coach’s Award; Virginia Tech Athletic
Director’s Honor Roll, 2012 Graduate
Student Service Award
Outside Work Experience: Construction
Superintendent, Prospect Homes of
Richmond; Construction Management, James River Construction,
LLC; Timber Framer, Blue Ridge
Timberwrights
Career Goals: I plan to become a
professor in civil engineering involved
in teaching, research, and community outreach. I hope to educate and
inspire students, teaching them the
importance of structural engineering
and the great responsibility they will
undertake in this profession. Through
my research I intend to promote
safety, longevity, and economy of civil
structures. I hope to have a positive impact on those around me by
organizing and being involved with
community outreach and service
projects.
Kacie C. D’Alessandro
Hometown: Easley, S.C.
Clemson University
Location of Master’s Studies: Clemson
University
Awards and Recognitions: Precast/
Prestressed Concrete Institute Daniel
P. Jenny Research Fellowship; American Society of Civil Engineers S.C.
Section Scholarship; W.M. Thames
Jr. Engineering Scholarship; General
Electric Women’s Networking Scholarship; Legislative Incentive for Future
Excellence Scholarship; Chi Epsilon;
Tau Beta Pi
Outside Work Experience: Wind Engineering and Structures Laboratory
Research Assistant, Clemson, S.C.;
Florence & Hutcheson, Inc. Internship, Columbia, S.C.
Career Goals: I plan to pursue a faculty position in academia, continue
research on concrete structures and
materials, and pursue additional opportunities with engineering education
research.
Christina C. Davis
Hometown: Rocky Mount, Va.
Virginia Tech
Tech
Awards and Recognitions: Registered
Professional Engineer; EPA Science
to Achieve Results (STAR) Fellowship; AWWA LARS and Thomas R.
Camp Scholarships; NWRI Fellowship; VWRRC William R. Walker
Graduate Fellowship; WPI Graduate
Fellowship; AEESP Outstanding M.S.
Thesis Award; ASCE Thompson
Award for Outstanding Undergraduate; Tau Beta Pi; Chi Epsilon
& Water Resources
Outside Work Experience: Environmental Engineer; Intern, Montgomery
Watson Harza; Co-op Engineer, RR
Donnelley Printing Company
Career Goals: I would like to contribute
to the field of environmental engineering through teaching, research, and
consulting.
Rimas Gulbinas
Hometown: Winfield, Ill.
University of Illinois - Urbana
Location of Master’s Studies: Columbia
University - NYC
Awards/Recognitions: Graduated Univ.
of Illinois-Urbana with Highest Honors; Accenture Outstanding Junior
Award; Shell Scholarship; Campus
Honors Program
Primary Area of Interest: Construction
Outside Work Experience: Worked as
a software and mechanical design
engineer at ARPAC; as a part-time
consultant for Overseas Strategies;
and finally as my own boss for an
online marketing software company.
In between school and work, I also
managed to trek through Africa for
five months and many other ‘off the
beaten track’ places—experiences
that I highly value and that have contributed to my growth as an individual
Career Goals: My ultimate goal is to
create a more proactive society
regarding energy and resource
conservation. We must connect the
dots between awareness and action
and instill a sense of responsibility
among us all. I plan to approach this
through studies of various consumption feedback mechanisms enabled
by extensive sensor networks.
Kathryn A. Gunberg
Hometown: Ada, Mich.
University of Michigan
Location of Master’s Studies: University
of Michigan
Awards and Recognitions: Chi Epsilon,
F.E. Richart Fellowship, UM; Greene
Fellowship, UM.
Outside Work Experience: Soils &
Structures, Inc.; City of Ann Arbor
Career Goals: Whether in academia
or industry, I hope to teach others
about geotechnical engineering and
to continue to broaden my knowledge
and experience in the field.
Rebecca A. Halvorson
Hometown: Whitewater, Wisc.
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
Awards and Recognitions: EPA STAR;
EAPSI Fellowship; Ray Heath Scholarship in Chemistry; UW-La Crosse
Undergraduate Research Grant Primary Area of Interest: Environmental
& Water Resources
Outside Work Experience: REU summer intern, Mercury research lab at
UW-La Crosse
Career Goals: Following graduation
from Virginia Tech, I will seek out a
position at a research institution, a
consulting firm, or possibly an international service organization. Whether
as a career or an annual summer
vacation, I also hope to use my understanding of water quality engineering in developing nations to improve
their basic quality of life through their
source of water.
Andrew B. Hardyniec
Hometown: Bringhurst, Ind.
Michigan Technological University
Tech
Awards and Recognitions: Summa
Cum Laude; Michigan Tech Civil and
Environmental Engineering Outstanding Achievement Award; MTU Alumni
Legacy Award; Class of ’49 Endowed
Scholarship; Presidential Excellence Scholarship; Dean’s List for all
semesters at Michigan Tech; MTU
Research Scholar; Valedictorian of
High School class
Outside Work Experience: Federal
Highway Administration, California
Division, investigated soil retaining structures built in response to
landslides and presented my work at
the First North American Landslide
Conference in Vail, Colo.; California Department of Transportation,
investigated bridge support structures
and was involved in bridge inspections; Resident Assistant, three years;
Research Assistant at Michigan Tech
Career Goals: I hope to obtain a
research position, preferably at an
academic institution. I foresee myself
teaching one day so I can share my
knowledge of engineering with others.
Jordan A. Jarrett
Hometown: Littleton, Colo.
Colorado State University
Location of Master’s Studies: Colorado
State University
Awards/Recognitions: Chi Epsilon Secretary; Colorado State University CEE
Structural Engineering Scholarship;
Colorado Distinguished Scholars
Award
Outside Work Experience: Structural Intern at S.A. Miro, Inc. in Denver, CO;
research and teaching assistantships
at Colorado State University
Career Goals: After hopefully gaining
more experience as a practicing
structural engineer, I would like to end
up in academia as a professor, teaching and leading research projects.
Johnn P. Judd
Hometown: Watsonville, Calif.
Brigham Young University
Location of Master’s Studies: Brigham
Young University
Awards/Recognitions: Research published in Journal of Structural Engineering, Journal of Composites for
Construction, and Forest Products
Journal; Brigham Young University
Research Presentation Award; Civil &
Environmental Engineering Department Scholarship; Lee and Connie
Wimmer Scholarship; College of
Engineering & Technology Scholarship; Office of Research & Creative
Activities Undergraduate Mentoring
Grant; and B.S. Cum Laude
Outside Work Experience: Licensed
Structural Engineer, Utah; Professional Engineer, Pennsylvania; Senior
Structural Engineer, Acute Engineering, Inc.; Consultant Engineer for
IntegriCo Composite, Recycle Technologies International, and Karren &
Associates, Civil/Structural Engineers
Career Goals: My goal is to perform
meaningful research that advances
the way we construct and protect our
built environment. I find it rewarding
to apply academic concepts in reallife situations. I also enjoy teaching
students and helping them to develop
forward-thinking skills.
Ronald D. Kent
Hometown: Omaha, Neb.
Brigham Young University
Tech
Awards/Recognitions: Member of Tau
Beta Pi; Edwin S. Hinckley Scholar;
Recipient of Brigham Young Scholarship three years in a row; Graduated
Magna Cum Laude
& Water Resources
Outside Work Experience: Aquaveo,
LLC, provided technical support for
users of the Watershed Modeling
System (WMS), Groundwater Modeling System (GMS), and Surface
Water Modeling System (SMS);
Brigham Young University, worked
as a research assistant on a water
quality study of Deer Creek Reservoir
in Utah
Career Goals: After I graduate, I am
going to obtain my P.E. license and
work for a consulting firm in the water/
wastewater industry.
Samuel Lasley
Hometown: Chillicothe, Iowa
Brigham Young University, Provo,
Utah
Tech
Awards/Recognitions: BYU Heritage
Scholar, Tau Beta Pi, BYU Cum
Laude
with Terracon Consultants, Inc.
Career Goals: I want to practice sound
engineering, serve the greater good,
contribute to the knowledge in my
field, be an inspiring mentor for
younger engineers, become a trusted
and valuable source of advice for
my colleagues, and have an office I
rarely inhabit.
Marc J. Maguire
Hometown: Lincoln, Neb.
University of Nebraska – Lincoln
of Nebraska – Lincoln
Awards/Recognitions: Virginia Tech College of Engineering Dean’s Teaching
Fellowship; University of Nebraska
– Lincoln Milton E. Moore Graduate
Fellowship; R.&L. Harris Civil Undergraduate Engineering Scholarship
Outside Work Experience: Nebraska
Department of Roads, Bridge Division, Research and Rating Team –
worked on bridge rating and design,
as well as a number of research
projects. Midwest Roadside Safety
Facility, Lincoln, NE, undergraduate
research assistant – test setup and
analysis of full scale vehicular crash
testing
Career Goals: Following graduation, I
plan to attain professional licensure
and hope to acquire a research position in either industry or academia
focusing on concrete structures.
Brett W. Maurer
Hometown: Geneva, N.Y.
Syracuse University
Location of Master’s Studies: Syracuse
University
Awards/Recognitions: International
Association of Foundation Drilling (ADSC) Industry Advancement
Scholar; Outstanding Teaching
Assistant Award; Most Outstanding
Graduate Student in Civil & Environmental Eng.; SU Chancellors Scholar;
First Place Poster, Nunan Poster
Symposium; Summa Cum Laude
graduate; SU Golden Transit Award;
Chi Epsilon President; Tau Beta Pi
Outside Work Experience: Staff Engineer, Passero Associates, Rochester
N.Y.; Teaching Assistant, Research
Assistant, and Lecturer, Syracuse
University
Career Goals: I would like to continue to be active in academia as a
researcher, educator, and mentor. I
am particularly interested in addressing geotechnical issues pertaining to
energy, emerging materials, and the
environment.
Jennifer H. Miller
Hometown: Sayre, Penn.; Tucson, Ariz.
Bucknell University
of Arizona
Awards and Recognitions: Licensed
Professional Engineer (State of
Arizona)
& Water Resources
Outside Work Experience: Project Engineer, Malcolm Pirnie, Inc., Tucson,
Arizona; Water/Wastewater Project
Engineer, MWH New Zealand, Ltd.,
Wanganui, New Zealand
Career Goals: I envision that an academic career will offer the opportunity
to generate interest and aid in the
development of future industry professionals, pursue my own research
and professional development, and
influence and contribute to applied
projects in the public or private water/
wastewater sectors. Upon completion
of the Ph.D. degree, my preliminary
thoughts are that I would like to
continue in academics (research and
teaching in a faculty position) and
consult within my research area.
John E. Petrie
Hometown: Richmond, Va.
Virginia Tech, New England Conservatory
Tech
Awards and Recognitions: VA AWWA
Graduate Scholarship; Sonny Roden
Memorial Scholarship; Brian Roy
Bluhm Memorial Graduate Fellowship; Hydro Research Foundation
Fellowship; G. V. Loganathan Fellowship; William R. Walker Graduate
Research Fellow Award; Edna Bailey
Sussman Fund Environmental Internship; Paul E. Torgersen Excellence in
Research Award; Waste Policy Institute Summer Graduate Fellowship
& Water Resources
Outside Work Experience: Assistant
Professor of Mathematics and Physics, Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar.
Career Goals: I want to continue to be
active as a researcher and educator.
Alexander Reeb
Hometown: North Wales, Pa.
Location of Undergraduate Studies: University of Rhode Island
Tech
Awards/Recognitions: EIGER Fellow;
Graduated Summa Cum Laude with
BS in Civil Engineering and BA in
German from the International Engineering Program, Minor in Mathematics; DAAD Scholar; Nelson C. White
Award; Member of Chi Epsilon and
Tau Beta Pi
Outside Work Experience: Private
consulting; Ed. Züblin AG, Stuttgart,
Germany; Institute für Grund und
Bodenmechanik (Geotechnical Research Institute), Technical University
of Braunschweig, Germany; Schnabel
Engineering, West Chester, Pa.; U.S.
Army Evaluation Center, APG, Md.
Career Goals: I plan to obtain my P.E. I
would like to work for an international
firm on cutting edge geotechnical
projects worldwide.
William Joseph Rhoads
Hometown: Joplin, Mo.
Purdue University
Awards/Recognitions: Undergraduate
University Honors; Undergraduate
Civil Engineering Honors; Dean’s List
– all semesters at Purdue; President
of the Virginia section of the American
Water Works Association at Virginia
Tech
& Water Resources
Outside Work Experience: Undergraduate research on green roofs; Intern at
Olsson Associates in Joplin, Mo.; Civil
Engineering Ambassador at Purdue
University
Career Goals: After earning my doctorate, I would like to gain practical
experience before pursuing my desire
to teach at the college level.
Craig M. Shillaber
Hometown: Deerfield, N.H.
University of New Hampshire
Tech
Summa Cum Laude from the University of New Hampshire; University of
New Hampshire Presidential Scholar;
University of New Hampshire Alumni
Association Legacy Scholar; University of New Hampshire Civil Engineering Graduate Achievement Award;
Tau Beta Pi
Outside Work Experience: Staff
Geotechnical Engineer, Parsons
Brinckerhoff, Inc. New York, N.Y.;
Intern at Appledore Engineering, Inc.
Portsmouth, N.H.; Lab assistant at
the University of New Hampshire
Career Goals: After completion of my
doctorate, I plan to obtain professional licensure. I also hope to hold
a position in academia so I can
pass my knowledge of geotechnical
engineering on to the next generation
of civil engineers, and continue to
conduct research.
Stephanie Smallegan
Hometown: Savannah, Ga.
Georgia Tech, Savannah
Location of Master’s Studies: Georgia
Tech, Savannah
Awards/Recognitions: NSF GRFP Fellow, Summa Cum Laude graduate,
CREATE program mentor, member
Tau Beta Pi, ASCE, and SAME
and Water Resources
Outside Work Experience: Lead teams
of students in research projects involving renewable tidal energy, heavy
metals assessment, and hydrodynamic measurements using remote
sensing and in situ instrumentation
Career Goals: I want to become an independent and successful researcher
and teacher in the field of coastal
engineering.
Daniel R. Vanden Berge
Hometown: Ada, Michigan; Wickliffe,
Ohio
Michigan Technological University
Location of Master’s Studies: Michigan
Technological University
Awards and Recognitions: Summa
Cum Laude at MTU; Dean’s list all
semesters at MTU; Outstanding
Achievement Award from MTU CEE
department; Member ASTM and
ASCE; Registered Professional Engineer – Ohio and Pennsylvania
Outside Work Experience: Project Engineer, EDP Consultants, Inc., Kirtland,
Ohio; Part-time Faculty, Lakeland
Community College, Kirtland, Ohio;
Graduate Teaching Assistant, Michigan Technological University
Career Goals: After completing my
doctoral degree, I hope to teach at
a research university and share my
love and knowledge of geotechnical
engineering with the next generation of civil engineers. I plan to carry
out research in the fields of slope
stability and shear strength and also
pursue applications of geotechnical
engineering and geohazard mitigation
in the developing world.
Michael Woodworth
Hometown: Rocky River, Ohio
University of Cincinnati
Tech
Awards and Recognitions: American
Society of Civil Engineers; University
Honors; Cincinnatus Scholar; Chi
Epsilon; Engineering Ambassadors
Outside Work Experience: VSL, Australia; GOP Limited; BBN Technologies.
Career Goals: I plan to obtain a Ph.D.
and find employment in industry or
academia with a research component. I eventually wish to teach at the
University level.
Via Alumni
Where are they now?
UNDERGRADUATES
Suzanne Ayres Angelo
Year Graduated: 2003; Master’s 2006,
Virginia Tech
Employer: Unknown
Doran J. Bosso
Virginia Tech
Employer: Skanska Infrastructure Development, Alexandria, Va.
Chris English
University of Illinois, Urbana
Employer: CH2M Hill, St. Louis, Mo.
Previous Employer: 1996-97, Patrick
Engineering, Springfield, Ill.
Brian P. Felker
Year Graduated: 2001
Current Status: Unknown
Kathryn Firich
Employer: Brown and Caldwell, Alexandria, Va.
R. Andrew Goodwin
Current Status: U.S. Army Engineer R&D
Center, Portland, Ore.
Chris Kaldahl
Employer: Appalachian Mountain Club,
Gorham, N.H.
Stephen O. Meininger
Employer: CH2M Hill - OMI, Clarksville,
Md.
Joshua Mouras
Employer: Magnusson Klemencic Associates, Seattle, Wash.
Joseph Schmitt
Current Status: Unknown
Paul Taylor
Current Status: ExxonMobil, Houston,
Texas
Henry J. Theiss
Employer: Unknown
Jennifer Verwest
Current Status: Currently pursuing a
graduate degree at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas
Elliott Robert Wheeler
Employer: Operations Management International, Inc., Englewood, Colo.
Ryan Willey
Employer: Unknown
The following students also received their
undergraduate degrees while on a Via
Scholarship and elected to pursue their
master’s degrees at Virginia Tech, also
as Via Scholarship recipients. Their
complete listings can be found in the
alumni student section of this publication. These students are: Randall Boe,
William Scott Dewhirst, II, Charles
M. Dietz, Jr., Greg Hensley, Peter D.
Kauffmann, Jeffrey Kuttesch, Matthew Moore, John D. Riley, John Stephen Siczka, Jeffrey Snow, Marcia
Votour Prowell, and Claire McKenzie
White.
Janet Sparks Chandler
Degree Awarded: Master’s
Employer: Full-time mother
Allan D. Chasey
Degree Awarded: Ph.D.
Employer: Del E. Webb School of Construction, Arizona State Univ., Tempe,
Ariz.
Kirsten Davis
Employer: Boise State University, Boise,
Idaho
Martha Gross
Employer: Arup Transaction Advice,
Washington, D.C.
Shannon P. Hapuarachy
Employer: S.M.H. Construction, Bradley,
W.Va.
Benjamin Hays
Employer: L.A. Dept. of Public Works,
Los Angeles, Calif.
GRADUATES
CONSTRUCTION
John Hildreth
Employer: University of North Carolina,
Charlotte, N.C.
Frank Arcuri
Employer: Fluor Corporation, New York,
N.Y.
Angel Ho
Employer: Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, Va.
Mary Jane Contos Bartlett
Employer: O’Brien & Gere Engineering,
Morrisville, N.C.
Jennifer Firman McConnell
Employer: Schoor DePalma, Kulpsville,
Penn.
Via Alumni: Where Are They Now?
Joshua P. Middleton
Employer: American Infrastructure,
Worcester, Penn.
Francis Pesce
Employer: Ulliman Schutte Construction,
Roanoke, Va.
Juan C. Pińero
Employer: Barrett Hale & Alamo, Consulting Engineers, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Jeffrey Snow
Years Graduated: 2000 and 2002
Degrees Awarded: Undergraduate and
Master’s
Employer: American Infrastructure,
Worcester, Penn.
Robert C. Williams
Year Graduated: 2006 and 2008
Degree Awarded: Master’s and Ph.D.
Employer: Vecellio and Grogan Inc.,
Beckley, W.Va.
Terry L. Williams
Employer: Alan A. Meyers, Inc.
ENVIRONMENTAL AND WATER
RESOURCES
Nancy Lade Anderson
Jason L. Beck
Employer: Camp Dresser and McKee
(CDM), Charlotte, N.C.
Randall Boe
Master’s
Employer: CH2M Hill, Gainesville, Fla.
Elizabeth Claire Booth
Employer: Arcadis, Lakewood, Colo.
Charles B. Bott
Employer: Hampton Roads Sanitation
District, Virginia Beach, Va.
J. Steven Brauner
Employer: Parsons Engineering, Denver, Colo.
AJMERA (Continued from page 44)
tion Competition (2011, 2012); First Place
in Orange County Graduate Women in
Science Conference (2011, 2012); Second
Place in ASCE Pacific South West Conference (PSWC) Geotechnical Event; First
Place in Earth Week Poster Competition
(2011); Second Place in CSUF Student
Research Competition (2012); Third Place
in 2012 US and Canada Google Mapping
Content; Co-authored four Peer Reviewed
Journal papers, five Peer Reviewed
Geotechnical Special Publications; two
Peer Reviewed International Conference
Proceedings, over 10 abstracts in Conference Proceedings as an Undergraduate
and Master’s Student; Member of Tau Beta
Pi, Chi Epsilon, ASCE, GI Graduate Student
Organization, and California Geotechnical
Engineering Association; Licensed by
State of California as Engineer-In-Training/Fundamental Engineer
Outside Work Experience: Instructional Student Aid/Teaching Assistant at California
State University, Fullerton as an undergraduate student; Graduate Teaching
Associate at California State University,
Fullerton as a Master’s student; Research
Assistant
Career Goals: I plan on obtaining my Professional Engineering License and eventually
obtain a Geotechnical Engineering (GE)
License. After graduation, I would like to
pursue a career in academia with a balance of research, teaching, and outreach
activities.
Randi Lieberman Brazeau
Employer: Postdoctoral Associate,
Virginia Tech
Lee Davis Bryant
Employer: Post-Doctoral Researcher,
Duke University, Durham, N.C.
Suzanne Ciavola
Employer: Advanced Geoservices, West
Chester, Penn.
Bradley M. Coffey
Employer: Metropolitan Water District
of Southern California, Water Quality
Division
Joel Cohn
Employer: Malcolm Pirnie, Norfolk, Va.
Cynthia Crane
Employer: Hydro Geologic, Herndon,
Va.
Andrea Crowe Hargette
Employer: Black & Veatch, Inc., Greenville, S.C.
Christina Clarkson Davis
Employer: Ph.D. student, Virginia Tech,
Northern Virginia Campus
Jason Davis
Employer: Carollo, Eagle, Idaho
William Scott Dewhirst, II
Master’s
Employer: Newport News Water Works,
Newport News, Va.
Charles (Chuck) Dietz, Jr.
Master’s
Employer: Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Dublin, Va.
Daniel Dorsel
Degree Awarded: Master’s, ENE
Employer: Cardinal Newman School,
Columbia, S.C.
Mark Dougherty
Employer: Auburn University, Auburn, Ala.
Laura Duncan
Employer: Arcadis, Knoxville, Tenn.
Mary Facciolo
Employer: Raleigh, N.C., consulting firm
Aimee E. Greyshock
Employer: Virginia Department of HealthOffice of Drinking Water, Culpepper, Va.
Matthew Gwaltney
Year Graduated: 2007 (posthumously)
Deceased
Orrick (Rick) Haney
Employer: Haney Associates, Inc., Anderson, S.C.
David Holbrook
Employer: National Institute of Standards
and Technology, Gaithersburg, Md.
Edward Brian Houston
Employer: Black & Veatch, Gaithersburg, Md.
Ryan M. Fedak
Employer: AECOM, Roanoke, Va.
Kari Husovitz Foy
Employer: B.P. Barber and Associates, Inc.,
N. Charleston, S.C.
Jamie Fettig
Degree Awarded: Master’s, ENE
Employer: Parson Engr. Sci., N.Y.
Angela Iatrou Simon
Employer: Tutor Perini, Framingham, Mass.
Scott A. Forsling
Employer: Brown, Collins, and Associates,
Draper, Utah
Joshua A. Joseph, Jr.
Employer: CH2M Hill, Atlanta, Ga.
John Fripp
Employer: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, National Resources Conservation Service,
Ft. Worth, Texas
Wesley Geertsema
Employer: Unknown
Kevin R. Gilmore
Employer: Bucknell University, Lewisburg,
Penn.
Richard T. Kelly, II
Employer: Brown & Caldwell, Seattle,
Wash.
Wendell O. Khunjar
Employer: Post-Doctoral Researcher,
Department of Earth and Environmental
Engineering, Columbia University, New
York, N.Y.
Lashun K. King Thomas
Employer: Syracuse University, Syracuse,
N.Y.
William J. Kingston
Employer: Gannet Flemming, Camp Hill,
Penn.
Rebecca Lattyak
Employer: Malcolm Pirnie, West Lafayette,
Ind.
Katherine Linares
Employer: HDR Engineering, Inc., Norfolk,
Va.
Erika Lubkowitz Bailey
Employer: HDR, Inc., Raleigh, N.C.
Donald C. Marikovich
Employer: Draper Aden & Associates,
Blacksburg, Va.
Becki Marshall Rosenfeldt
Employer: Hazen & Sawyer, Fairfax, Va.
Katherine McArthur Leitch
Employer: Merck & Co., Inc., West Point,
Penn.
Colleen McCloskey Rossmeisl
Employer: Companion Animal Clinic,
Blacksburg, Va.
CLARK
(Continued from page 44)
Program; Research Experience for
Undergraduates (REU) in Watershed
Sciences at Virginia Tech; Missouri S&T
Undergraduate Teaching Assistant; Internship at Caterpillar, Inc. – Mining and
Construction Equipment Division
Career Goals: My ultimate career goal is
to work for a major research university,
teaching and conducting environmentally relevant research.
Brian McCormick
Employer: Department of Public Works,
Allegany County, Md.
Laurie S. McNeill
Employer: Utah State University, Logan,
Utah
Eduardo Mendez, III
Employer: U.S. Army, Afghanistan
Peter B. Merkle
Employer: Sandia National Labs, Albuquerque, N.M.
Matthew C. Moore
Degree Awarded: Undergraduate and
Master’s
Employer: Sikland Engineering Associates, Van Nuys, Calif.
Christopher D. Muller
Employer: Brown and Caldwell, Seattle,
Wash.
Jocelyn Fraga Muller
Employer: University of Washington,
Seattle, Wash.
Caroline Nguyen
Employer: Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, Laurel, Md.
Julia Novak
Deceased
Jeff Parks
Employer: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.
Kristina Perri
Employer: GHD, Inc., Bowie, Md.
Carrie Adam Phipps
Noreen Poor
Employer: Public Health Engineering,
University of South Florida
Diana Rashash
Employer: North Carolina State University, Raleigh, N.C.
Heather Veith Rectanus
Employer: Battelle, Columbus, Ohio
Sandra Robinson
Employer: CH2M Hill, Redding, Calif.
Jason Rushing
Employer: Malcolm Pirnie, Fairfax, Va.
Mary Rust Sadler
Employer: Arcadis, Raleigh, N.C.
Emily A. Sarver
Paolo Scardina
Dipankar Sen
Employer: Santa Clara Valley Water District, San Jose, Calif.
Vickie L. Singleton
Employer: Full-time mother, New Bern,
N.C.
Brad Shearer
Employer: CH2M Hill, Redding, Calif.
Holly Shorney
Year Graduated: February 1992
Employer: Black & Veatch, Inc., Kansas
City, Mo.
John S. Siczka
Master’s
Employer: CH2M Hill, Brown Deer, Wis.
Aaron B. Small
Employer: AES Consulting Engineers,
Williamsburg, Va.
Sheryl D. Smith
Employer: Camp, Dresser, and McKee,
Raleigh, N.C.
Jeffrey A. Sparks
Employer: Hampton Roads Sanitation
District, Virginia Beach, Va.
James H. Stagge
Employer: Postdoctoral Researcher,
University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Jonathan Stathis
Employer: Cedar City Corp., Cedar City,
Utah
Melissa Stewart
Employer: ProChem, Inc., Elliston, Va.
Amanda E. Strickhouser
Employer: Watson Wyatt, San Francisco, Calif.
Chris Tadanier
Employer: Black & Veatch, Denver,
Colo.
Dan Waddill
Employer: Dept. of the Navy, Norfolk,
Va.
Anna Zaklikowski
Employer: HDR Engineering, Portland,
Ore.
Pete Chenevey
Employer: Dames & Moore, Cincinnati,
Ohio
Diane Waters
Employer: City of Miami, Public Works
Dept., Miami, Fl.
Lauren Zuravnsky
Employer: Greeley and Hansen, Richmond, Va.
Jaime Colby
Employer: Sanborn, Head & Associates,
Inc., Westford, Mass.
Edwin W. Watkins
Employer: Ogden Environmental and
Energy Services, Nashville, Tenn.
GEOTECHNICAL
Katherine L. Weidner
Employer: Black & Veatch, Charlotte,
N.C.
David Whichard
Employer: International Paper, S.C.
Claire McKenzie White
Employer: Kimley-Horn and Associates,
Virginia Beach, Va.
Krista Rule Wigginton
Employer: University of Maryland, College Park, Md.
Christopher A. Wilson
Employer: Greeley and Hansen Engineers, Inc., Richmond, Va.
Christopher Wolfe
Employer: Semcor, Washington, D.C.
Jennifer Wright
Employer: Department of Environmental
Quality (DEQ), Richmond, Va.
Kevin D. Young
Tiffany E. Adams
Employer: URS Corp., Denver, Colo.
Amanda Barngrover
Employer: URS Corp., Denver, Colo.
William Bassett
Employer: Federal Highway Administration, Washington, D.C.
Diane Yamane Baxter
Employer: GZA GeoEnvironmental Inc.,
Providence, R.I.
Craig Benedict
Employer: Gannet-Flemming, King of
Prussia, Pa.
David Bentler
Degrees Awarded: Master’s and Ph.D.
Employer: CH2M Hill, Englewood, Colo.
Kyle Blakley
Employer: Stantec Consulting, Cincinnati,
Ohio
Jeremy Britton
Employer: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
Portland, Ore.
Megan Cole
Employer: GEI Consultants, Winchester,
Mass.
Jeramy Bruyn Decker
Employer: Kewit Construction Co., Pacifica, Calif.
Patricia (Trish) M. Gallagher
Year Graduated: December 2000
Employer: Drexel University, Philadelphia,
Pa.
Russell Green
George Filz
Rachel T. Finch
Employer: S&ME, Huntsville, Ala.
Brendan Fitzpatrick
Employer: GEOPIER Foundation Co.,
Inc., Mooresville, N.C.
Laura Henry
Employer: Haley & Aldrich, N.J.
Wayne Herring
Employer: ARM Group, Hershey, Pa.
Randall Hickman
Employer: BP American, Inc., Houston,
Texas
Bob Mokwa
Employer: Montana State University,
Bozeman, Mont.
Alan Rauch
Employer: Fuller, Stantec, Lexington,
Ken.
Michelle Hoy
Employer: Oregon Dept. of Environmental Quality, Portland, Ore.
Michael Navin
Employer: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Louis, Mo.
Alexander Reeb
Employer: Ph.D. candidate, Virginia Tech
Kenneth A. Huber
Employer: Senior Pastor at Calvary Baptist Church, Riverhead, N.Y.
David Nevius
Employer: Terra Costa Consulting, San
Diego, Calif.
Laura M. Kosoglu
Employer: George Mason University,
Fairfax, Va.
James Parkes
Employer: Gannett Fleming, Harrisburg,
Penn.
Samuel Lasley
Employer: Ph.D. candidate, Virginia
Tech
Maysill G. Pascal
Employer: Haley and Aldrich Inc., Parsippany, N.J.
Scott Mackey
Employer: Central Connecticut State
University, New Britain, Conn.
Craig Petranka
Employer: Unknown
Jessica R. Marshall
Employer: Colorado Public Works
Authority
Michael P. McGuire
Employer: Self-employed / Virginia Tech,
Blacksburg, Va.
Michael Pockoski
Employer: Geopier Foundation Company, Inc., Mooresville, N.C.
Jonathan Porter
Employer: U.S. Government, McLean,
Va.
Christopher L. Meehan
Employer: University of Delaware, Newark, Del.
Marcia Votour Prowell
Master’s
Employer: Virginia Geotechnical Services, PC, Richmond, Va.
Clark Morrison
Employer: North Carolina Dept. of
Transportation, Raleigh, N.C.
Susan Rafalko
Employer: Reinforced Earth Co., Vienna,
Va.
Nathan Reeves
Employer: S&ME, Inc., Raleigh, N.C.
John D. Rice
Employer: Utah State University, Logan,
Utah
Andrew T. Rose
Employer: University of Pittsburgh, Johnstown, Penn.
Jennifer A. Schaeffer
Employer: CH2M Hill, Seattle, Wash.
Kurt J. Schimpke
Employer: Barr Engineering Company,
Minneapolis, Minn.
Craig M. Shillaber
Employer: Ph.D. Candidate, Virginia Tech
Matthew Sleep
Employer: Oregon Institute of Technology,
Klamath Falls, Ore.
Joel A. Sloan
Employer: U.S. Air Force, Kunsan Air
Base, Republic of Korea
Edward R. Ware III
Employer: Wurster Engineering, Greenville, S.C.
Kord Wissman
Employer: GEOPIER Foundation Co.,
Inc., Mooresville, N.C.
STRUCTURAL
Mary Sue Mouchka Abel
Employer: EMCS Design Group, Milwaukee, Wis.
Chad C. Alander
Employer: Gannett Fleming, Harrisburg,
Penn.
Nick Amico
Employer: Figg Engineering, Tallahassee, Fla.
Kirsten A. Baldwin Metzger
Employer: Laurene & Rickher, P.C.,
Charlotte, N.C.
Anthony Barrett, Major, USAF
Employer: United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colo.
James Wescott (Wess) Bott
Employer: HDR Alaska, Inc., Eagle
River, Ark.
Susan Bowers
Employer: Whitman, Requardt & Associates, Baltimore, Md.
Adam G. Bowland
Employer: DiGioia Gray & Associates,
Monroeville, Penn.
J. Christopher Carroll
Employer: University of Louisiana at
Lafayette, Lafayette, La.
Jason Cawrse
Employer: CH2M Hill, Alexandria, Va.
Kevin R. Collins
Employer: Lawrence Technological
University, Southfield, Mich.
Luke T. Cronin
Employer: Black & Veatch, Kansas City,
Mo.
Benjamin T. Cross
Employer: Baker Engineering and Risk
Consultants, Inc., Arlington, Va.
Amy Dalrymple Ryan
Employer: Starzer, Brady, Fagan Associates, Inc., Atlanta, Ga.
D. Brad Davis
Employer: University of Kentucky, Lexington, Ken.
Kyle Richard Dominisse
Employer: Walter P. Moore, Kansas City,
Mo.
Richard Drumm
Employer: FHWA
Keith Grubb
Employer: American Institute of Steel
Construction, Chicago, Ill.
Linda Morley Hanagan
Employer: Penn State University, State
College, Penn.
Matthew D. Harlan
Employer: Clark Nelsen, Norfolk, Va.
Devin K. Harris
Employer: University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.
Greg Hensley
Master’s
Employer: Magnusson Klemencic Associates, Seattle, Wash.
Anne Himebaugh
Employer: Simpson, Gumpertz, and
Heger, Waltham, Mass.
Hunter Hodges
Employer: KBR, Inc., Birmingham, Ala.
William P. Jacobs, V
Employer: Stan Lindsey and Associates,
Atlanta, Ga.
Jared B. Jamison
Employer: Hankins and Anderson, Glen
Allen, Va.
Bernard L. Kassner
Employer: Ph.D. Candidate, Virginia
Tech and Virginia Center for Transportation Innovation and Research,
Charlottesville, Va.
Ann E. Jeffers
Employer: University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, Mich.
Stephanie A. Koch
Employer: Parsons Brinckerhoff-Ohio
Inc, Columbus, Ohio
Maria W. Lang
Employer: Whitman, Requardt, & Associates, Richmond, Va.
Adam R. Lease
Employer: Cives Steel Company, Winchester, Va.
Charles (Chuck) Newhouse
Employer: Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Va.
John C. Ryan, Jr.
Employer: StructurTech Construction Systems, Charleston, S.C.
Bryan J. Loflin
Employer: Parsons Brinckerhoff, Raleigh, N.C.
Patricia Seay O’Neil
Employer: Bechtel, Frederick, Md.
Richard A. Saunders
Employer: KSI Structural Engineers,
Atlanta, Ga.
Justin D. Marshall
Employer: Auburn University, Auburn,
Ala.
James David Martin
Employer: Walter P. Moore, Tampa, Fla.
Timothy W. Mays
Degrees Awarded: Master’s (1997) and
Ph.D. (2000)
Employer: The Citadel, Charleston, S.C.
Jason D. Perry
Year Graduated: December 2003
Employer: Stanley D. Lindsey & Associates, Ltd., Nashville, Tenn.
Jason Piotter
Degree Awarded: Master’s; Ph.D. pending
Employer: Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Robert T. Prince
Employer: AECOM Design, Roanoke, Va.
Donald P. Scholz
Employer: CVM Engineers, Wayne,
Penn.
Michael W. Seek
Employer: East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tenn.
Bruce Shue
Employer: Smislova, Kehnemui & Assoc.,
Rockville, Md. Rockville, Md.
Laurie Mazursky
Employer: Sutton-Kennerly and Assoc.,
Asheville, N.C.
Bruce Queen
Employer: President, QED Inc., Raleigh,
N.C.
David McGowan
Employer: Dominion Generation, Glen
Allen, Va.
Michelle Rambo-Roddenberry
Employer: FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, Tallahassee, Fla.
Sean Molloy
Employer: Redwine Reizian Structural
Engineers, Avon, Colo.
Nicholas Redmond
Employer: Brown + Kubican, PSC, Lexington, Ken.
Michael Motley
Employer: The LPA Group, Inc., Tallahassee, Fla.
Clint Rex
Employer: Stanley D. Lindsey and Associates, Atlanta, Ga.
Emmett A. Sumner
Employer: N.C. State University, Raleigh,
N.C.
Michael C. Neubert
Employer: King Guinn Associates, Charlotte, N.C.
Elias A. Rivera
Employer: Unknown
Matthew K. Swenty
Employer: Federal Highway Administration, Turner Fairbank Highway Research Laboratory, McLean, Va.
Cheryl Rottman
Employer: Frontenac Engineering, St.
Louis, Mo.
Michael Sladki
Employer: Cates Engineering, Centreville,
Va.
Paul Spears
Employer: Martin/Martin Consulting Engineers, Kansas City, Mo.
Sean Robert Sullivan
Employer: HNTB, East Lansing, Mich.
Anthony B. Temeles
Employer: Modjeski & Master’s, Philadelphia, Pa.
Mustapha Zmerli
Deceased
Angela Sellars Terry
Employer: Self-employed
TRANSPORTATION
INFRASTRUCTURE AND
SYSTEMS ENGINEERING
(TISE)
Steven J. Tschetter
Employer: Suncoast Post-Tension, Inc.,
Woodbridge, Va.
Zaeinulabddin M. Adam
Employer: Atkins-Qatar Central Planning
Office, Doha, Qatar
Christopher J. Waldron
Employer: University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Ala.
Joseph A. Wallenfelsz
Employer: McLean Contracting Company,
Glen Burnie, Md.
J. Ashley Warren
Employer: The LPA Group, Inc., Falls
Church, Va.
Christopher Werner
Employer: Stroud Pence, Norfolk, Va.
Maurice W. White
Employer: Unknown
John Whitlow
Employer: Unknown
Gregory Williamson
Employer: ExxonMobil, Fairfax, Va.
Eric J. Wishart
Employer: Civil CADD Services, Inc.,
Lincoln, R.I.
Sudarshana C.S. Bhat
Employer: University of Texas at Austin,
Austin, Texas
Douglas R. Bish
James M. Bryce
Employer: Ph.D. Candidate, Virginia Tech
Edgar David de León Izeppi
Employer: Virginia Tech Transportation
Institute, Blacksburg, Va.
Joshua (Josh) Diekmann
Employer: A consultant in Seattle, Wash.
Kelly M. Donoughe
Employer: Ph.D. Candidate, Virginia
Tech and employed by SAIC, Blacksburg, Va.
Erin Walsh Donovan
Employer: Delcan Corporation, Vienna,
Va.
Crysta Highfield
Employer: Unknown
Anthony Ingle
Employer: DLZ Michigan, Kalamazoo,
Mich.
Peter D. Kauffmann
Master’s
Employer: Gorove/Slade, Washington,
D.C.
Jeffrey Kuttesch
Master’s
Employer: Rummel, Klepper, and Kahl
Engineers (RK&K), Baltimore, Md.
John D. Riley
Master’s
Employer: Bowman Consulting Group,
Ltd., Richmond, Va.
Kevin M. Siegel
Employer: PBS & J, Inc., Newport News,
Va.
Eric J. Siess
Employer: Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dalgreen, Va.
Via Donors
Donors to the CEE Department for 2011-2012
The donors recognized on the following pages made a contribution
to the Via Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering (CEE) during fiscal year 2012 (7/1/11 – 6/30/12).
Although every effort has been made
to ensure the accuracy of this report,
we acknowledge that errors may have
occurred. If your name has been omitted or listed incorrectly, please accept
our sincere apologies and send in any
corrections to the CEE Main Office at
(540) 231-6635.
CEE Alumni who
contributed in 2011-2012
William Aden.....................................1967
Chad C. Alander...............................1996
Thomas F. Albee...............................1978
S. Kendall Anderson............... 1962/1970
C. Howard Arnold, IV........................1980
Kenneth S. Atkins.............................1982
Lawrence Ayers................................1954
Walter F. Bailey.................................1972
Donald J. Balzer, Jr...........................1977
Jessica M. Barbier............................1972
Bruce R. Bates..................................1979
Courtney A. Beamon........................1995
Phillip S. Beasley..............................1992
Ronald L. Beck.................................1970
Julian B. Bell ....................................1962
David A. Benevelli.............................1977
Brian W. Bersch................................1981
Alok Bhandari...................................1975
Michael N. Biscotte...........................1980
Randall W. Boe.................................1991
Charles P. Boepple...........................1979
Harold W. Bohannon, Jr...................1968
Michelle E. Bolding...........................2005
Mary Ann Bonadeo...........................1995
Steven R. Bonham , Jr.....................1973
James R. Bowles..............................1974
Gary P. Bowman...............................1980
Dana M. Boyadjian...........................1976
A. Allen Bradley, Jr............................1983
Jerry D. Brammer.............................1968
Anita W. Branch................................1994
William F. Brittle, Jr...........................1969
Roger L. Brockenbrough..................1954
Thomas W. Brockenbrough .. 1942/1946
Craig S. Bryant.................................1971
W. Barry Bryant....................... 1970/1971
Amy L. Buehler.................................1994
Guy W. Buford..................................1952
John B. Burchnall.............................1975
David M. Burk...................................1974
Douglas Burks..................................1979
Raymond F. Burmester....................1956
Michael P. Cagel...............................1992
Valerie L. Carpenter-Ho....................1999
Roger B. Carriker..............................1987
James N. Carter, Jr...........................1975
Barrett T. Catlett................................2009
Derrick B. Cave.................................1987
Yuri J. Chandler................................2008
Ben H. Chen.....................................1973
R. Bradley Chewning.............. 1964/1970
Alfred R. Cline...................................1958
Kevin R. Collins................................1989
Robert H. Connock, Jr......................1962
Thomas J. Cook...............................1980
Donald S. Copley..............................1988
Thomas H. Cox.................................1991
Donnie R. Crandell...........................1969
Raymond G. Curry, Jr.......................1954
E. Stokes Daniels, Jr........................1957
Thomas E. Decker ...........................1980
David D. Dee, Jr................................1987
Stephen R. DeLoach........................1978
James B. Diamond...........................1969
Robert E. Dick...................................1989
Brian K. Diefenderfer.....1996/1998/2002
Richard M. DiSalvo, Jr......................1977
Michael J. Dugas..............................1987
John W. Dulin....................................1986
Walter W. Duncan.............................1951
E. William East..................................1980
Billy L. Edge......................................1964
Hugh R. Edwards.............................1964
Charles L. Ernest, Jr.........................1970
Douglas R. Fahl................................1965
Kimberly S. Farah.............................1984
Charles B. Feagans, III.....................1972
Robert O. Ferrell...............................1955
Glendon J. Fetterolf..........................1996
George M. Filz .................................1992
Jay M. Fitzgerald..............................1976
Theron R. Fluker...............................1999
William T. Forbes..............................1965
Erika Frank........................................2002
Scott A. Galbraith..............................1991
Lindsey K. Gardner..........................1960
Anne M. Germain.............................1989
James W. Givens.............................1970
Adil N. Godrej......................... 1982/1989
Larry R. Goode.................................1972
Thomas B. Gray...............................1973
Thomas A. Grogan, Jr......................1980
Timrod A. Groover.................. 1979/1980
Martha E. Gross...............................2010
Donald R. Grubbs, Jr........................1971
Louis L. Guy, Jr. ...............................1959
Charles D. Hall..................................1970
John B. Hall, Jr..................................1955
Belinda M. Harper.............................1996
Richard E. Harris..............................1958
E. Franklin Hart ................................1967
Max L. Heckman..............................1975
Gregory M. Hensley ........................2004
Pablo A. Hernandez.........................1989
Michael C. Hewitt..............................1973
David E. Hill......................................1978
Jack M. Hill........................................1949
John R. Hillman................................1990
Don W. Holloway..............................1957
Edward G. Horstkamp III..................1986
Via Donors
Charles S. Hughes, III......................1958
Kimberly C. Hughes.........................1985
Jeffrey M. Hugney............................1988
Robert W. Hungate ..........................1986
Thomas N. Hunnicutt, III...................1959
David C. Inman.................................2004
Matthew C. Jackson.........................1992
Edward L. Janney.............................1973
Robert F. Jansen..............................1980
Benjamin C. Jarosz..........................1999
Jimmie D. Jenkins............................1970
Paul B. Johnson...............................1973
James R. Jones................................1970
John H. Jones...................................1973
Meredith T. Jones.............................1994
Patricia W. Jordan............................1978
Paul A. Jordan..................................1979
Williams A. Joyner............................1965
William E. Junda, III..........................2000
Robert B. Kahler............................ 1981
Dennis Kamber.............................. 1963
Bryan J. Katz................2000/2001/2007
Susan E. Keck-Truman ................. 1980
Christine S. Kelly............................ 1984
William R. Kelly.............................. 1968
Lori P. Keyser................................. 1993
Herbert G. Kipp.............................. 1967
John W. Koenig.............................. 1991
Kenneth J. Kohut........................... 1972
Kenneth M. Krupa.......................... 1976
Glenda P. La Rue.................. 1991/1993
James R. Land, Jr.......................... 1957
Kevin T. Laptos............................... 1988
Douglas F. Lauer............................ 1990
William F. LaVecchia...................... 1952
Jon-Michael C. Lemon................... 2001
Jerry C. Lester................................ 1959
Milton J. Lewis, Jr........................... 1981
Jeffrey N. Lighthiser....................... 1977
James R. Link................................ 1958
Paul C. Liu...................................... 1961
James F. Loudon............................ 1960
Ronald A. Love............................... 1977
James K. Lowe, Jr.......................... 1978
Brenda D. Lukefahr............... 1974/1980
Daniel P. Lynch............................... 1989
Gary S. Lynn.................................. 1988
Thomas S. Maddock ..................... 1950
José A. Marcano............................ 2002
Burton M. Marshall......................... 1958
Donald L. Martin............................. 1974
Michael R. Martin........................... 1974
Thomas A. Mason.......................... 1973
Fred L. McConnell........1964/1967/1972
David I. McCready......................... 1973
Francis D. McCreery, Jr. ............... 1967
Samuel H. McGhee........................ 1962
Garland H. McKenzie, Sr. ............. 1981
Amy D. Meli.................................... 1998
Howard C. Melton.......................... 1961
J.J. Messersmith, Jr....................... 1964
Robert S. Miller, III.......................... 1967
Jeremy M. Mocny........................... 1997
Paula J. Moore............................... 1996
Ayman A. Morad............................ 1990
Kristin N. Moreno........................... 2008
Herbert W. Morgan......................... 1974
Joe M. Morgan............................... 1968
Laura J. Morillo............................... 1984
Michelle E. Motchos....................... 1996
J.R. Ubejd Mujagic......................... 2004
Kenneth H. Murray......................... 1965
A. Ross Myers................................ 1972
David R. Myzie............................... 1986
Albert L. Nichols, Jr........................ 1962
David A. Nizamoff........................... 2000
Richard C. Noakes......................... 1958
Kathleen A. Noonan....................... 1992
Robert L. Nordstrom...................... 1951
Kerry A. Nothnagel................ 1965/1968
Kenneth R. Nuttall................. 1980/1986
Raymond J. O’Donnell, III.............. 1980
Morris B. Oliver.............................. 1987
Robert A. Painter............................ 1948
George R. Parker........................... 1959
Denise F. Pfaff................................ 1979
Daniel M. Phillips............................ 1958
Lawrence C. Phipps....................... 1960
Katherine G. Plasket...................... 1987
Jennifer L. Plyler............................ 1997
David B. Powers............................ 2000
Stephen C. Powers........................ 1987
Carl W. Pugh, Jr............................. 1985
Michael Quillen............................... 1970
Andrew Randall ............................. 1980
Walter J. Rawls..................... 1966/1968
Michael A. Rayl.............................. 2006
Robert R. Rees.............................. 1986
Glenn W. Rehberger ..................... 1969
Allen W. Reynolds.......................... 1962
James B. Richards, Jr.................... 1968
Mark Richardson............................ 1997
Jack E. Rinker................................ 1960
Randolph P. Rivinus....................... 1968
Floyd M. Roach.............................. 1972
Joseph H. Rogers, Jr..................... 1965
Jason J. Root................................. 2003
Aldelmo Ruiz-Santiago.................. 1949
Thomas D. Rust ............................ 1965
Dallas W. Safriet ............................ 1967
Richard J. Seabrook, Jr.................. 1984
Stephen M. Seay .......................... 1986
William L. Sellars............................ 1960
Robert A. Shaffer................... 1984/1989
Patrick N. Shaffner......................... 1961
Edward J. Shea..................... 1997/1999
Daniel B. Shelton........................... 2003
Lance D. Shields............................ 2008
Adnan Shindala..................... 1964/1965
Bernard L. Shumate, Jr. ................ 1980
Bernard L. Shumate, Sr................. 1951
Michael T. Siburt ............................ 2002
Howell B. Simmons .............. 1960/1963
Carol P. Sinclair.............................. 1983
Jefferson Sinclair, Jr....................... 1975
Christopher S. Smith...................... 1993
Elizabeth F. Smith.......................... 1986
Samuel C. Stephens...................... 2010
Bryan W. Stevenson...................... 1996
Jack H. Stewart.............................. 1953
Richard H. String............................ 1988
Todd W. Swanson ......................... 1974
Richard D. Swartout....................... 1969
William R. Thomas......................... 1994
Dominic M. Tiburzi......................... 1974
J. Allan Tice ................................... 1965
Samuel C. Tignor........................... 1958
J. Stephen Torell............................ 1993
Alan K. Truman.............................. 1980
Dennis D. Truax............................. 1976
Steven J. Tschetter......................... 1992
Via Donors
Kwong Tong Tse............................. 1978
Beth A. Turner................................ 1972
Frederick J. Turner......................... 1959
Eric S. Walbeck.............................. 1960
William L. Ward.............................. 1995
Thomas B. Washington, Jr............. 1953
A. Scott Weber............................... 1977
Phillip A. Wells................................ 1991
Joseph B. Whitebread.................... 2009
Thomas J. Willard.......................... 1979
Kord Wissmann.............................. 1987
James M. Wright............................ 1960
Michael T. Zuravel.......................... 1984
Friends who contributed in 2011-2012
Jayne K. Ayers
Arvil G. Catlett
Finley A. Charney
Kim Christopoulos
Noel Copen
Sam and Pam Easterling
Erika Frank
Beverly Greve
M. James Gunberg
Mallory L. Johnson
J. Michael Kelly
Bill and Melissa Knocke
Scott M. Krasner
Pat Lucia
Elizabeth M. Morris
John T. Novak
The Estate of Terry Pearson
William G. Reynolds
Charlotte P. Sellers
Suzanne C. Snow
F. William Stephenson
Leo L. Tolia
Via-Bradley Foundation
Margaret W. Woolwine
20122012
| VIA
REPORT
| |CEE
| VIA
REPORT
CEE|| 63
Via Donors
Corporations and businesses who contributed in 2011-2012:
Advanced Structural
Concepts, Inc.
Alternative Natural
American Infrastructure, Inc.
ARCADIS
Bechtel Foundation
Bechtel Power Corporation
CH2M Hill
Construction Market
Development
Draper Aden Associates, Inc.
ExxonMobil Foundation
Fluor Enterprises, Inc.
Fugro Atlantic
Gay and Neel, Inc.
Genuario Construction
Company, Inc.
Hankins & Anderson, Inc.
MEB General Contractors,
Inc.
NanoSafe, Inc.
Norfolk Southern Foundation
NUCOR Corp.
PBS&J
Pembroke Construction
Company, Inc.
Rinker Detweiler and
Associates
Risa Technologies LLC
Stantec Consulting, Inc.
Student Engineers Council
T.J. Willard & Associates,
Inc.
Tensar-Geopier Foundation
Vecellio Family Foundation,
Inc.
Whiting-Turner Contracting
Company
The following organizations support CEE through their membership in the affiliates
program for the Center for Geotechnical Practice and Research:
• Haley & Aldrich
• Schnabel Foundation Company
• Ardaman & Associates, Inc.
• Collin/Valentine Partnership
• Hayward Baker – A Keller Company
• TREVIICOS Corporation
• Condon-Johnson
• Kiewit Constructors, Inc.
• TVA
• Engineering Consulting Services, Inc.
• Langan Engineering and Environmental • URS
(ECS)
Services, Inc.
• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
• Froehling & Robertson, Inc.
• Nicholson Construction Company
• U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
• GeoConcepts Engineering, Inc.
• PSI, Inc.
• USACOE Waterways Experiment Sta• Geopier Foundation Co.
• S&ME
tion
• GeoSyntec Consultants
• Schnabel Engineering Associates
• Virginia Department of Transportation
The following organizations support CEE through
their sponsorship of the department’s Land
Development Design Initiative:
Accumark Subsurface Utility
Services
AES Consulting Engineers
ATKINS
Balzer and Associates, Inc.
Blackwood Development Company
Bohler Engineering
Bowman Consulting
Burgess & Niple
christopher consultants, ltd.
Clark Nexsen
Cowen Design Group
Dewberry
Draper Aden Associates
Fairfax County
Filterra
Gay and Neel, Inc.
J2 Engineers, Inc.
Jansen Land Consulting, LLC
Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc.
Land Design Consultants
Maser Consulting
Patton Harris Rust & Associates
Rinker Design Associates
Tri-Tek Engineering, Inc.
Urban, Ltd.
Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc.
Wawa, Inc.
Credits
Department Head............. W. Samuel Easterling
Editor............................................ Lynn Nystrom
Contributing Writers....................Lindsey Haugh,
Neal Moriconi
Designer.....................................David Simpkins
Photographers..... Michael Kiernan, Jim Stroup,
Logan Wallace, Anne Wernikoff
CEE Coordinator................. Donna Sanzenbach
Virginia Tech does not discriminate against
employees, students, or applicants for
admission or employment on the basis of race,
gender, disability, age, veteran status, national
origin, religion, sexual orientation, or political
affiliation. Anyone having questions concerning
discrimination should contact the Office for
Equity and Access.
The Charles E. Via, Jr.
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
200 Patton Hall, Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24060
www.cee.vt.edu
Non-Profit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
Blacksburg VA
24060
Permit No. 28

Via Report No. 26 – 2012 - Department of Civil and Environmental

Transcription

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