NIST Awards $20 Million for Research Center

PI and Director Dr. John van de Lindt, Co-Director Dr. Bruce Ellingwood and Co-PIs Dr. Suren Chen and Dr. Hussam Mahmoud have been awarded $20M by NIST over 5 years for a research center focused on resiliency to communities affected by disasters. This Community Resilience Center of Excellence will be working with NIST researchers and partners from 10 other universities, and will develop computer tools to help local governments decide how each can best invest resources intended to lessen the impact of extreme weather and other hazards on buildings and infrastructure and to recover rapidly in their aftermath.

"This center complements NIST's long-standing efforts to improve the performance of the built environment against natural hazards—such as tornadoes, coastal flooding, wildfires and earthquakes—as well as large-scale, human-caused disruptions,” said Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and Acting NIST Director Willie May. “The tools developed by the center will help to further advance the important goal of disaster resilience from ambitious concepts to cost-effective solutions that communities can implement over time."

To Read More, click here.

Congratulations to John, Bruce, Suren and Hussam!

Faculty Collaboration on $1.28M NSF Project

Dr. John van de Lindt, Dr. Hussam Mahmoud, and Dr. Bruce Ellingwood have been awarded $1.28M for their NSF proposal entitled, "RSB/Collaborative Research: A Risk-Informed Decision Framework to Achieve Resilient and Sustainable Buildings that Meet Community Objectives." This project is a collaborative effort with the Universities of Washington and Oklahoma, with $760K coming to CSU.

Dr. Pierre Julien received the Hunter Rouse Hydraulic Engineering Lecture

Dr. Pierre Julien has received the Hunter Rouse Hydraulic Engineering Lecture, the most prestigious national award in the area of Hydraulics. Dr. Julien was recognized "For his numerous achievements and contributions to the hydraulic engineering profession in the areas of river mechanics and erosion and sedimentation throughout a most distinguished, dedicated research and academic career."

Congratulations, Pierre!

Dr. John van de Lindt awarded ASCE Raymond Reese Research for 2015

Dr. John van de Lindt has just been awarded the ASCE Raymond Reese Research for 2015 for a paper he co-authored called "Evaluation of tsunami loads on wood frame walls at full scale" for the Journal of Structural Engineering.

Congratulations, John!

Dr. Sale received SERDP & ESTCP 2014 Project of the Year Award

Dr. Tom Sale received a SERDP and ESTCP 2014 Project of the Year award from Andrea Leeson, Deputy Director & Environmental Restoration Program Manager at SERDP & ESTCP on Friday, December 12th. This award recognizes outstanding research and technology developments that will benefit the Department of Defense (DoD).

These efforts are helping DoD enhance its mission capabilities, improve its environmental and energy performance, and reduce costs. Dr. Sale's project was in environmental restoration: Basic Research Addressing Contaminants in Low Permeability Zones. His team developed analytical and numerical modeling techniques to address transport and fate of contaminants in heterogeneous media, along with a State-of-the-Science review of management of contaminants in low permeability zones in aquifers.

Dr. Venayagamoorthy and Grad Students receive Francois Frenkiel Award

Dr. Karan Venayagamoorthy, and two of his graduate students, Benjamin Mater and Simon Schaad, have been unanimously selected by the American Physical Society for the top Physics of Fluid article by young investigators in 2013. They received the Francois Frenkiel Award the society's Division of Fluid Dynamics for their paper: "Relevance of Thorpe length scale in stably stratified turbulence."

The paper was selected "For new and significant insights into scaling laws for stratified turbulence with potentially broad impact in the area of environmental flows," according to the citation for the award.

The award was presented to Venayagamoorthy and his students at a recent Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting in San Francisco. For more information about this paper, click here.

College of Engineering Awards

Congratulations to Dr. Marvin Criswell and Dr. Hussam Mahmoud for receiving the COE's Meritorious Faculty Emeritus Award and the George T. Abell Outstanding Early-Career Faculty Award, respectively.

Choosing a Career in Civil & Environmental Engineering