Manuel Garcia-Lopez has dedicated his academic and professional life to the study, research, and development of geotechnics. He has taught for 52 consecutive years at Universidad Nacional in Colombia and approximately 45 years at the university he co-founded, Escuela Colombiana de Ingenieria. A major building block of his successful career were his Masters studies in soil mechanics and foundation engineering at Purdue.

Chinese war hero and U.S. ally Sun Li-jen, known as "the ever-victorious general" for his feats in World War II, was recently recognized on the floor of the U.S. Congress. Sun Li-jen was also one of our school's earliest international students, graduating with a degree in civil engineering from Purdue in 1924.

PhD student Yining Feng has been selected to attend the Polsky Center Women in STEM Leadership Conference at the University of Chicago on October 27th.

PhD student Jessica Eisma has completed a one-year project studying sand dams in Tanzania. In 2016, Eisma was awarded a pair of prestigious research grants — totaling more than $45,000 — from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program and the U.S. Borlaug Fellows in Global Food Security Program to study the ecological impact of sand dams in Tanzania. She flew to Africa in August 2016 to begin her study, which is the basis for her doctoral thesis.

Robert Connor, Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of CAI and S-BRITE, has been named Distinguished Alumnus at his alma mater of Lehigh University, where he completed his M.S. and Ph.D. in civil engineering.

Julio Ramirez, Professor of Civil Engineering and NHERI-NCO Center Director, is among 25 Purdue innovators inducted into this year's Purdue Innovator Hall of Fame by the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization.

PhD student Seungjae Lee was recently named recipient of the prestigious American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Grant-in-Aid Award for 2017-2018. This $10,000 award is given to the most outstanding graduate students performing research in the High Performance Buildings or HVAC fields.

Lyles CE graduate student Seyed Ali Ghahari was recently awarded a competitive scholarship from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to attend the Modeling and Simulation of Transportation Networks Workshop that took place in Cambridge, July 31 – August 4, 2017.

On Thursday, Sept. 21, Purdue Distinguished Engineering Alum Ron Klemencic (BSCE '85) shared his insights into the magic which has fueled his career.

Adnan Rajib, a member in Dr. Venkatesh Merwade's research team in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering, is the recipient of the Spring 2017 Outstanding Graduate Student Award.

Yunlan Zhang, PhD student in Civil Engineering, received a SURF Best Mentor award on August 4th. The purpose of the award is to recognize Purdue graduate student mentors who have provided exceptional guidance and instruction to undergraduate researchers in the SURF program.

Daniel Gomez, PhD candidate in Civil Engineering, received a SURF Best Mentor award on August 4th. Daniel advised two undergraduate researchers on independent projects during summer 2017.

CE doctoral student Seyed Ali Ghahari was awarded a competitive national scholarship by the Foundation of the Association of Energy Engineers (FAEE) to attend the World Energy Engineering Congress (WEEC) in Atlanta, GA, September 27-29, 2017.

Associate Professor, Konstantina (Nadia) Gkritza was awarded a fellowship by the Greek Diaspora Fellowship Program to travel to Greece to work with Prof. Eleni Vlahogianni of the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece on collaborative research in smart and shared mobility and mentoring graduate students in transportation planning and engineering.

New research is calling for immediate safeguards and the study of a widely used method for repairing sewer-, storm-water and drinking-water pipes to understand the potential health and environmental concerns for workers and the public.

ASTM International recognized Professor Emeritus Vincent P. Drnevich with the 2015 Committee on Publications Award for the Outstanding Article on the Practice of Geotechnical Engineering.

Dr. Chad Jafvert, Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental and Ecological Engineering at Purdue University, was recently awarded the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) Outstanding Publication Award for his influential 1992 paper "Reaction Scheme for the Chlorination of Ammoniacal Water." The award is a commendation for a "landmark environmental engineering and science paper that has withstood the test of time and significantly influenced the practice of environmental engineering and science."

Karen Casteloes, recent MSCE environmental graduate of the Lyles School of Civil Engineering, received 1st place Outstanding Masters Thesis Award from the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP).