Summer 2011 - School of Engineering

NEWSLETTER ISSUE 1:1 SUMMER 2011
DEPARTMENT OF
CIVIL + ENVIRONMENTAL
ENGINEERING
Ashley Martin, E13, assembles a section of the bridge during a ASCE Steel Bridge Team practice session on April 26, 2011. (Credit: Kelvin Ma/Tufts University)
SPANNING
THE
DISTANCE
Engineers bridge theory and practice
Structural engineers in Tufts’ American Society of Civil Engineers
(ASCE) chapter spent their senior year designing and constructing bridges—and putting their classroom knowledge to the test in
the real world.
“A lot of what we do in school is on paper, but there’s nothing like
actually making something,” said Justin Binder, E11, co-captain of
Tufts ASCE steel bridge team. “The ability to get your hands on
some physical steel, there’s sort of nothing like it.”
“I think I never really had an idea of the limitations or advantages
of working with a material like steel,” said Trevor Sanders, E11,
head of the structural design team. “You assume in the classroom,
if the calculations say your design is good, then it’s good; but in
reality, there are so many more constraints.”
In the last weekend of April 2011, students from the steel
bridge team, including Trevor, Justin, and co-captain Eric
Johnson, E12, traveled to Quebec to participate in the regional steel
bridge competition.
Continued on page 3
“A lot of what we do in
school is on paper, but
there’s nothing like
actually making something... The ability to
get your hands on some
physical steel, there’s
sort of nothing like it.”
IN THIS ISSUE
From the Chair.................. 2
Research Highlights.......... 3
Quick Hits......................... 3
Sponsored Talks................ 4
Congratulations to
our Graduates................... 5
Alumni Updates................. 6
Alumni and Student
Awards Dinner................... 7
FROM THE CHAIR
Dear CEE Alumni and Friends,
Summer in New England: warm breezes, fireworks on the water, Tufts’
softball, time to reflect…and finish the newsletter! It has been a
productive year for the department as we continue to expand our
faculty, improve facilities, and educate the next generation of civil and
environmental engineers.
To strengthen our program in Environmental Health, Professor Elena
Naumova joined the department from Tufts University School of
Medicine. Dr. Naumova’s area of expertise is biostatistics, and her
research interests include the development of analytical tools
for disease surveillance, exposure assessment, and environmental
epidemiology. Dr. Naumova’s research group will be based in the new
the Integrated Laboratory for Computation at 196 Boston Avenue, a
collaborative research environment that houses researchers working
in such areas as visualization, artificial intelligence, signal processing,
statistics, and machine learning.
Notables...
Associate Professor Laurie Baise
was elected to the board of the
Seismological Society of America.
Professor and Chair Kurt Pennell, Research
Assistant Professor Natalie Cápiro, and
collaborator Frank Löffler (University
of Tennessee) have received funding
from SERDP to develop a fundamental
understanding of the impacts of in situ
remediation technologies on groundwater
quality and relevant subsurface processes.
Associate Professor David M. Gute was
an invited participant at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
meeting to discuss potential revisions to
the existing “Strategic Elements for Environmental Justice” document,which sets
the agency’s environmental justice goals.
Associate Professor Chris Swan and
colleagues Angela Bielefeldt (University of Colorado-Boulder) and Kurt Paterson (Michigan Technological University)
received the 2010 American Society of
Engineering Education’s Best Paper Award
for their paper “Measuring the Impacts
of Project-Based Service Learning.”
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In addition, we hired three Research Assistant Professors in the
Environmental and Water Resources (EWRE) and Geotechnical and
Geoenvironmental Engineering (GGE) groups. Dr. Itza Mendoza-Sanchez
investigates abiotic and biotic processes that control the prevention and
mitigation of soil and groundwater contamination. Dr. Eric Thompson’s,
EG09, research focuses on numerical modeling of soil behavior and
methods for incorporating the effects soil response on seismic hazard
maps. Dr. David Small studies global hydrologic processes and the
environmental impacts of climate change.
To help manage our growing department, Laura Sacco has been
promoted to administrative assistant, and we welcome Kristen Fratto as
staff assistant in the main CEE office.
In student news, the ASCE chapter had another active year, which
included organizing the CEE Buddy System for incoming majors, hosting
the student-faculty dinner and softball game, and winning Tufts’ Engineering Week for the third year in a row. In addition, the Steel Bridge team
had a solid showing at the AISC-ASCE northeast regional competition.
Special thanks to Dan Valentine, E93, EG95, staff engineer with
Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, and to Masoud Sanayei and Lee Minardi,
who helped advise the team. Kudos also go to our graduate student award
winners, Allison St. Vincent and Karen Koskinski. Allison received an
EPA-STAR Graduate Fellowship and a Scholar Award from the Philanthropic
Educational Organization to support her research on ultrafine particles
in air pollution. Karen received a 2011 Tufts Presidential Award for
Citizenship and Public Service for her work on the prevention of
schistosomiasis in Ghana.
Please feel free to visit us if you’re in the area, and I hope to see you at
the Alumni and Student Awards Dinner on Saturday, May 5, 2012.
Spanning The Distance
Continued from page 1
The annual competition sponsored by the ASCE and the American
Institute of Steel Construction challenges student teams to design
bridges with a long list of structural requirements and build them
on-site at the competition in less than 45 minutes.
In the competition, the team’s bridge bent minimally under a
load of 2,500 pounds—the weight of a Volkswagen Beetle—which
earned them third place in that design category. Overall, the team
finished sixth out of thirteen schools, and the real-life lessons will
be passed on to next year’s team.
“Normally, if you complete an academic assignment, you know it’s
good if you get a checkmark on the page; but with this competition, we know our design is good if the bridge doesn’t break. That
will be our checkmark,” said Justin.
To see a time-lapse video of the steel bridge construction,
use your smart phone to scan the QR code.
Or go to goo.gl/vsZWO
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
Breaking Ground: New Environmental Sustainability Laboratory
Rendering of the Environmental Sustainability Laboratory
One of the most critical threats to current and future clean water supplies is
emerging contaminants, specifically engineered nanomaterials, pharmaceuticals
and personal care products (PPCPs), and
pathogens. To address this need, the department will renovate the existing environmental engineering laboratories to create a
centralized, high-quality laboratory space
to enhance ongoing and future research
programs in environmental sustainability.
The department received $1.6 million from the National Science Foundation to create
a state-of-the-art Environmental Sustainability Laboratory (ESL) that will support
multi-disciplinary experimental and mathematical modeling research to advance the
fundamental understanding of the fate, transport and control of emerging contaminants in multi-media—air, water, and soil—environmental environmental systems. The
proposed renovation will provide approximately 3,000 square ft. of wet-laboratory space.
With supplemental funds from the School of Engineering, the project also creates two
graduate student offices and relocates the computer-aided design (CAD) lab.
Vaughan Receives Sustainability Innovation Award
Master’s candidate Eric Vaughan received one of two honorable mention awards from the
Dow Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge for his research project: “A Methodology for Evaluating Coupled Pricing Policies that Stimulate the Agricultural Use of Treated
Wastewater.” Vaughan says, “Part of sustainability is managing groundwater resources. If
you’re replacing your use of groundwater with wastewater, you’re basically getting more
use for every drop of water that you’re pulling out of the ground.”
Cholera and Climate Change
The research of Ali Akanda and Antarpreet Jutla, recent doctoral recipients (August 2011)
in Professor Shafiqul Islam’s research group WE REASoN, was featured in Yale Environment 360 and the Huffington Post. Jutla and Akanda have been working with Islam to
develop methods to use remote sensing and climate data to track the coastal plankton
blooms that occur before cholera outbreaks. Climate change could exacerbate these plankton blooms, and in turn, the severity of cholera outbreaks. “Although there is no clear
understanding of the exact nature of the relationship between cholera and climate,” said
Islam, “if climate change leads to more extremes, it will have an impact on cholera.”
QUICK HITS
Professor Steven
Chapra was named
a Fellow of the
American Society
of Civil Engineers
(ASCE). Chapra was also named
the ASCE/CEE Faculty Member of
the Year Award given to the faculty
member whose enthusiasm, dedication, and mentorship best inspires
students to pursue their passions.
Professor John
Durant received a
Tufts Community
Research Center
Award for his
involvement in the Community
Assessment of Freeway Exposure
and Health (CAFEH) study.
Professor David
Gute received
the Multicultural
Service Award given
by Tufts AS&E Equal
Education Opportunity Committee.
He was recognized for his work
with the Vida Verde Women’s Cleaning Co-Operative in Somerville.
Professor Rich Vogel
received the John
W. Olver Leadership
Award in recognition
of his “dedicated
leadership and outstanding
commitment to environmental
research and protection of our
natural resources.”
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Sponsored Talks
July
March
Professor Steve Chapra visited South Korea
where he gave a keynote address at the Korean Environment Institute’s International Water Symposium on public health engineering.
Professor and Chair Kurt Pennell gave a
presentation at Brown University’s
Superfund Research Program about
“Linking Environmental Toxicants to Neurodegenerative Disease: Persistent Organic
Pollutants and Engineered Nanomaterials.”
May
Professor Masoud Sanayei, Professor of the
Practice Brian Brenner, Ningyu Zhao, and other
colleagues from the Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) project presented their research
on bridges in Massachusetts to the 2010
Structures Congress/North American Steel
Construction Conference (NASCC) in Florida.
Professor and Chair Kurt Pennell delivered
a keynote lecture on “Thermal Treatment:
Chemical Reactivity and Combined Remedies” at the REMTec Summit conference on
advancing the environmental science and
collaborating with remediation industry.
April
Professor Rich Vogel gave the keynote
address— “Water Resources Planning
in a Changing World”— at the Water Resources Conference at UMass, Amherst.
WSSS hosted its second annual interdisciplinary symposium at The Fletcher School:
“Water in 2050: The Infrastructure to Get
There.” Participants included: Paul Kirshen,
Research Leader, Battelle Memorial Institute; Associate Professor David Gute;
Annette Huber-Lee, Visiting Scholar.
January
Professor Luis Dorfmann and Ph.D. student James Kaklamanos presented their
research about “Identifying and Modeling
Complex Site Response Behavior” at the
NSF Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation Engineering Research and
Innovation Conference in Georgia.
November
Professor Rich Vogel presented an online seminar titled “Hydromorphology:
The Shape of our Water Future” as part
of the Consortium of Universities for the
Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc.’s
(CUAHSI) 2010 cyberseminar series.
October
David Gute presented research about
occupational safety and health from the
community-based grant “Assessing and
Controlling Occupational Risks for Immigrants in Somerville” sponsored by NIOSH.
Abriola Named Top
American Woman
in Science
Linda M. Abriola, Dean of
the School of Engineering
at Tufts University, has been
recognized among the top
American women in science.
Dean Abriola appears in
“American Women of Science
Since 1900” an encyclopedia
focused on 500 of the
20th century’s most notable
American women scientists.
NEW FACES ELENA NAUMOVA
Elena Naumova
Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Director Tufts Initiative for Forecasting and Modeling of Infectious Diseases (InForMID)
Faculty Director, Health and the Environment, Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE)
Adjunct Professor, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
Dr. Naumova’s area of expertise is in methodology development for modeling of transient processes with application in environmental epidemiology, infectious diseases, and public health. Her research on developing innovative
analytical and computational tools for monitoring environmentally driven infections and longitudinal studies of
growth is funded by NIAID, NIEHS, and EPA. She facilitates utilization of novel data sources, including remote
sensing data and satellite imagery for better understanding the nature and etiology of diseases on local and global
scales. She applied her theoretical work to studies of infections sensitive to climate variations and extreme weather
events. Her research activities span a broad range of research programs in emerging and re-emerging diseases,
environmental epidemiology, molecular biology and immunogenetics, nutrition and growth. Dr. Naumova is
participating in a number of international projects collaborating with epidemiologists, immunologists, and public
health professionals in India, Kenya, Ecuador, Japan, Canada, Russia, and the UK.
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Congratulations to Our 2010–2011 Graduates
Undergraduate Awards
Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering
Lindsay Hull was awarded the Max O.
Urbahn F.A.I.A. Scholarship from the
Society of American Military Engineers
(SAME)—New York City Post
Jessica L. Perkins was awarded the
De Florez Prize in Human Engineering
Al-Hillawi, Noor
Bialosky, Alec James
Binder, Justin Israel
Bulman, Alison C.
Desouza, Yasmin Lopes
Donovan, Brian P.
Earle, Bennett Giles
Frano, Christopher Edward
Gomez Jr., Lawrence Freeman
Goodman, Lillian Wagner
Greenfield, Anna Hope
Gudrais, Laila Lauma
Harper, Eric D.
Littleton Awards
Justin Binder, Lindsay Hull, Jenna Lohmann,
George Sam Mason, Jessica Perkins,
Meghan Pesch, Katie Reif, Kelly Smith, Jordyn
Wolfand, Rhiannon Ervin, Eugene Morgan
Cataldo Awards
Sarah Boudreau, Caitlin Collins, Zachary
Cousens, Robert Keane, Yun Luo, Eric Wilburn
Alumni Awards
Jennifer L. Edelmann, E01, EG03, received
the department’s Distinguished Service Award
Charles N. Kroll, E87, EG89, received the
department’s Outstanding Achievement Award
Master of Science in Civil and
Environmental Engineering
Alex Bedig: OptiRTC: an internet-based
real time remote monitoring, control, and
communications platform for environmental resource management applications.
Hull, Lindsay Amesbury
Mason, George Samuel Dunham
Neuhs, Thomas C.
Okparaeke, Eberechukwu Ezenne
Pesch, Meghan Alexandra
Reif, Katie Linnea
Sanders, Trevor Theodore
Caroline M. Ganley: An assessment of
human health risks posed by PBDEs measured in the Massachusetts environment.
David Roman: Multivariate models of
watershed suspended sediment loads
for the eastern United States.
Carlo Christopher Jacob: Creating an
eccentrically braced frame model for application in seismic performance assessments.
Stuti Sharma: A risk assessment of lifetime exposure to arsenic-contaminated
groundwater and comparison with urinary
bladder cancer incidence rates in northeastern Worcester County and western
Middlesex County in central Massachusetts.
Peter Moser: Continuous monitoring of the Dowling Hall footbridge.
Melissa Ng: Multivariate non-stationary
stochastic streamflow modeling.
Master of Engineering in Civil
and Environmental Engineering
Travers, Stefanie Joan
Eric J. Pheifer: Structural modeling,
analysis and instrumentation of the
Maurice J. Tobin Memorial Bridge.
John Phelps: Instrumentation, nondestructive testing, and finite element
model updating for bridge evaluation.
Michael T. Larimore
Amenta, Julianne Haley
Elsey, John Lovell
Fechter, Allison N.
Filler, Carolyn Lenor
Gregory, Benjamin Lee
Leach, Olivia Isabel Morris
Lohmann, Jenna Elizabeth
Simon, Anna Catherine
Smith, Kelly Kathryn
Swanson, Catherine Alice
Wolfand, Jordyn Michelle
Matthew Xavier O’Connor:
A two-season analysis of air pollutants
in a near highway Boston neighborhood.
Erik W. Egleston: The spread of plasticity in high-strength reinforced concrete
structural walls with boundary elements.
Thomas H. Kelley: University waste
minimization practices in a sample of
U.S. and Canadian universities.
Bachelor of Science in
Environmental Engineering
Christine H. Sotolongo: Fiber optic redox
sensors for in-situ environmental monitoring.
Jeffrey B. Trull: Impact of atmospheric mixing
conditions on near-highway air
pollutant gradients in the early morning.
Zhenying Zhang: Nutrient mass
balance model for the Great Lakes.
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ALUMNI UPDATES
’07 Lieutenant Brian L. Mackey,
’96 Lieutenant Commander
returned from a two-year assignment in Kandahar, Afghanistan. On Veteran’s Day, Nov. 11,
2010, Lt. Mackey flew the flag “for Professor
Brenner and the Tufts American Society of Civil
Engineers in thanks for all their support.” He
visited Brian Brenner’s bridge design class to
present a flag and plaque on March 29, 2011.
’01 Stephanie Gawlak Topping, E01,
MS03, and Gerry Topping, E00, MS02,
announced the birth of Colin Gill on October
28, 2009. Stephanie is associate director
in the Office of Institutional Research and
Evaluation at Tufts. Gerry is a project manager
for the real estate group at Partners Healthcare. The family resides in Topsfield, Mass.
’99 Jocelynn Hyde Cheng and David
Cheng announced the arrival of Charlotte
Helena on December 17, 2010. Big brothers Jasper and Henry love their new sister.
’98 Linda Bentley and David Gillespie
welcomed their second daughter, Elena, on
February 12, 2010. They live in Newton, Mass.
’97 Susan Kehnemui Donnelly
and Kevin Donnelly announced the birth
of Maxwell James on May 22, 2010. He
joins sister Sadie.
William Butler is now the commanding
officer of the U.S. Navy Underwater Construction Team 1, which has been deployed
recently to Haiti, Chile, and the Middle East.
’93 Patrick King has been named
vice president and environmental division
manager in the Boston office of GEI Consultants. He has more than seventeen years of
experience in environmental engineering.
’91 Scott Turner has been hired
by Nitsch Engineering in Boston as the
new director of planning. He has seventeen years of experience as a project manager and civil engineer.
’88 Rachid Hankour, MS88, PhD91,
returned from training and teaching at the
Northern Arctic Federal University in Russia.
“I had a great time teaching again,” he writes,
“even in Russian.” Hankour is vice president
and director of lab systems at Geocomp.
’86 June Weintraub, E86, MS95,
was appointed to a three-year term on the
National Drinking Water Advisory Council,
a federal advisory committee that provides
advice, information, and recommendations
on matters related to the Safe Drinking Water
Act. She is a senior epidemiologist at the
San Francisco Department of Public Health.
’74 Chris Woodcock has just finished
a yearlong term as president of the New
England Water Works Association. Woodcock
is president of Woodcock & Associates,
which provides financial and rate-setting
consulting services to water and wastewater agencies throughout the world.
’62 Lewis Watt was honored with the
Al Sheriff Award for Excellence in Chapter
Advising from Delta Tau Delta International
Fraternity. He joined the fraternity as an undergraduate in 1959. Since 1996 he has been
involved as an alumni volunteer and is the division vice president for central Pennsylvania.
4 ways to share the events of
your life with your classmates
1. Join us each May for the annual
CEE Alumni and Student Awards Dinner
2. Email classnotes@tufts.edu
3.Visit Tufts Online Community:
www.alumniconnections.com/tufts
(go to “Classnotes,” then click on
“Submit/Edit a Class Note”)
4. Mail to Class Notes, Alumni Relations,
Tufts University, 80 George Street,
Medford, MA 02155
The ASCE’s Civil Engineering magazine featured an article by Professor of the Practice Eric Hines and Mysore Ravindra, chairman of LeMessurier Consultants, about the recently completed
Wind Technology Testing Center. This facility is the largest of its kind in the world and will play a major role in the emerging American offshore wind industry. (Credit: Chuck Choi)
6
Celebrating the CEE Alumni and Student Awards Dinner
Department Chairs past and present (L to R): Chris Swan, Linfield Brown, N. Bruce Hanes, Kurt Pennell, Masoud Sanayei,
Lew Edgers, and Stephen Levine
Top right: Chair Kurt Pennell and James Kaklamanos, doctoral
candidate in Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Right Middle: Professor Richard Vogel and Charles N. Kroll,
E87, EG89, winner of the department’s Outstanding Achievement Award
Jodine Brown, temporary staff assistant and Laura Sacco,
Administrative Assistant
Left Middle: Anjuliee Mittleman and Rhiannon Ervin doctoral
candidates in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering
Chair Kurt Pennell with the recipients of the Littleton Awards (L to R): Justin Binder, George Sam Mason, Jessica Perkins,
Kelly Smith, Jenna Lohmann, Jordyn Wolfand, Lindsay Hull, Katie Reif, Meghan Pesch, and Rhiannon Ervin
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NONPROFIT ORG.
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
BOSTON, MA
PERMIT NO. 1161
Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering
113 Anderson Hall
200 College Avenue
Medford, MA 02155
Jordyn Wolfand, E11, examines a tube of sand used in her experiment in the nanotech laboratory at the SciTech building on Monday, March 28, 2011. As a Summer Scholar in the lab
of Kurt Pennell, professor and chair of civil and environmental engineering, Jordyn explored possible links between PCB exposure and Parkinson’s disease. Her senior thesis focused
on the way nanoparticles of a carbon configuration called C-60, increasingly used in industry, move through soil. (Credit: Alonso Nichols/Tufts University)