Producing materials such as steel, plastics and cement in the United States alone inflicts $79 billion a year in climate-related damage around the world, according to a new study by engineers and economists at the University of California, Davis. Accounting for these costs in market prices could encourage progress toward climate-friendly alternatives.
Improving indoor air quality is the goal of a new video series developed by experts at the University of California, Davis in collaboration with the California Department of Public Health. Aimed at building and facility managers, the videos distill the science of air quality into steps building and facility managers can take to remove pollutants, including viruses, from the place we spend most of our time -- indoors.
Assistant Prof. Michael Gardner is co-leading a team that is headed to Florida to investigate the impacts of Hurricanes Helene and Milton and to understand how we can design and build more resilient infrastructure that can handle such extreme events. Learn more about the effort below.
The UC Davis Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering is excited to welcome two new faculty to the Department this fall, Dr. Alvar Escriva-Bou and Dr. Casey De Finnda. Both bring their distinctive expertise to focus on critical water challenges at the nexus of food, energy, environment, and climate.
Production of cement is responsible for nearly 7% of global CO2 emissions. This is because concrete is the second most consumed material in the world, and the chemical reactions that occur during concrete production using traditional methods give off CO2. Concrete is used in pavements, buildings, dams, among many other uses. We urgently need ways to make concrete more climate friendly. Two UC Davis professors are helping drive the changes needed, Prof.’s John Harvey and Somayeh Nassiri.
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.
