The profession is at a point in time where technological advances, climate change, new development, renovation of existing infrastructure, and societal priorities are challenging us to find innovative adaptations, as well as creative new approaches, to meet the demands.
The faculty and students in our department are stepping up to offer new ideas, advanced research methods and face many of the current and anticipated challenges. There is a common theme to our research and that is to serve society at lower cost and faster resolution of problems that reduce the inconvenience to communities while enhancing safety. The research projects highlighted in this publication illustrate that commitment.
By incorporating the architecture of city drainage systems and readings from flood gauges into a comprehensive statistical framework, our researchers worked to accurately predict the evolution of floods in extreme situations like hurricanes.
Faculty and students across our nine specialties are joining the global effort to stop the spread of COVID-19 by investigating the unintentional consequences of the virus such as monitoring wastewater systems in infected neighborhoods and the transmissibility through the freight transportation system.
One of the department’s internally recognized strengths is the materials group which is largely focused on improving pavement performance for transportation systems. Innovations in new materials and structural design are being evaluated to respond to extreme natural or human-made disasters through existing knowledge paired with artificial intelligence.
Through these projects and many others, the faculty in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is dedicated to improving the resilience and sustainability of our local and global communities.
We are saddened by the loss of Bartell Zachry whose extraordinary leadership in the profession and dedicated support of this department will be missed.
Sincerely,
Robin Autenrieth
Department Head A.P. and Florence Wiley Professor III