After a high school environmental science class sparked an interest in civil and environmental engineering, graduating senior Genevieve Burye pursued her passion at UC Davis. She reflects on the people and experiences that continued to deepen her commitment to engineering a better world for all.
From building a concrete canoe to serving as ASCE president, graduating civil and environmental engineering student Freesia Finn has gained valuable experience and invaluable friendships from her time at UC Davis.
We are proud to announce that our undergraduate team, who worked tirelessly since Fall 2023, saw their hard work pay off when they took home one of the coveted awards of the competition. The annual design competition, which was held in Seattle this year in conjunction with the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) Annual Meeting, featured over 40 teams from around the world.
Under the leadership of Professor Kari Watkins, the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies won $1.7 million in research funding for a Climate Change and Transportation Research Center in a national competition funded by the US Department of Transportation (DOT). The Center will advance research and technologies to support the Nation’s clean energy goals, accelerate decarbonization of the transportation sector, strengthen the resilience of the Nation’s transportation infrastructure, and address environmental inequities created by the transportation system.
The UC Davis Postdoctoral Scholars Association has awarded Dr. Nitin Kumar with the 2024 Postdoctoral Excellence Award. The award recognizes the vital role that postdoctoral scholars play in supporting excellent research, mentoring, and outreach at UC Davis. Dr. Kumar focuses his research on engineering earth block construction for affordable, eco-efficient, and hazard-resistant dwellings. The recipients of the award received a certificate and cash prize and were invited to the 2024 Postdoctoral Research Symposium, which took place on April 24, 2024.
In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, the University of California, Davis, College of Engineering recognizes women in engineering, their journey to and in the field, and how they promote a diverse, equitable and inclusive world.
Meet some remarkable women in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and learn how they inspire inclusion in engineering.
Laura Luna (our Ph.D. student) mentored two CEE undergrad students, Isabella Lera, and Jessica Lee, as they prepared a submission for the 2024 GeoVideo competition hosted by ASCE's GeoInstitute.
They were invited to attend GeoCongress in Vancouver to compete in the finals and were awarded top place.
We're proud of our colleague, Katerina Ziotopoulou, PhD, PE., who received the USUCGER Early Educator Award at the 2024 ASCE GeoCongress in Vancouver. This award can be awarded by the USUCGER Board, once every two years, to an affiliate of a USUCGER-member institution who has provided educational and/or professional development services to the USUCGER community.
Professor Fabian Bombardelli has received an honorific degree as Doctor Honoris Causa from the National University of La Plata (UNLP), Argentina. This is the highest academic accolade from UNLP. Prof. Bombardelli is a world-leader in hydraulic modeling and environmental fluid mechanics, and he received this honorific during a ceremony at which he presented a lecture titled "Numerical Simulation of Air Entrainment in Stepped Spillways: From Engineering to Research." You can read more about his accomplishments and the impact of his work here (in Spanish).
Dr. Ahmad Hassan was selected as the 2024 recipient of the Reidar Bjorhovde Outstanding Young Professional Award from the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC). This prestigious award provides recipients with mentorship and connects them with leaders in the steel industry that will help to foster a broad look at the world of steel. Dr. Hassan graduated with his Ph.D.
Prof. Emeritus Patricia (Pat) Mokhtarian was elected to the 2024 class of the National Academy of Engineering for her contributions to "improved transportation systems planning and practice through quantifying human behavior." Prof. Mokhtarian is a world-leading researcher on travel behavior. Her work on the impact of telecommunications technology on travel behavior long predates the huge shift that has taken place over the last few years.
Massive rainstorms. Earthquakes. Natural phenomena are constantly reshaping the world around us, sometimes with disastrous consequences. In the Rock Hardepisode of the hit public TV show Home Diagnosis Prof.'s Jason DeJong and Ross Bolanger and Dr.
The American Society of Civil Engineers has awarded the 2024 Raymond C. Reese Research Prize to Amit Kanvinde, Professor at UC Davis’s Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and Aditya Jhunjhunwala, his PhD student. The Raymond C. Reese Research Prize, created in 1970, is given to authors of an article that “describes a notable achievement in research related to structural engineering and which indicates how the research can be used,” according to the ASCE website.
UC Vice President for Research & Innovation Theresa Maldonado and UC Davis Vice Chancellor for Research visited the CEE Center for Geotechnical Modeling on January 23rd, where they learned about the 45 year history of the facility and plans to maintain the CGM as the premiere facility in the US for centrifuge-based research. The CGM hosts two centrifuges, one with a smaller 1-m radius and a massive 9-m radius. The high-gravity environment created when the centrifuges spin allows for investigation of a host of important problems in geotechnical engineering using scaled models.
For decades, California has led the way to a low-carbon economy that serves all people, especially when it comes to transformation of our transportation infrastructure.
In a groundbreaking shift from the past, the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) has comprehensively addressed some of the strategies and measures that are needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and curb the worst effects of climate change. UC Davis Assistant Professor Alan Jenn and Professor Alissa Kendall both played significant roles in developing this comprehensive assessment.
