Since its founding in 1887, Purdue University’s School of Civil Engineering has been dedicated to the advancement of society – through not only research and implementation, but cultural progressiveness as well. One of the School’s first significant cultural achievements came in 1894 with the graduation of David Robert Lewis – Purdue's first black graduate.

Inez Hua, Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental and Ecological Engineering, is a recipient of the 2016-17 Learning Community Real-World Experience Award given by the Learning Communities program.

Worldwide YouTube phenomenon The Slow Mo Guys (Gavin Free and Dan Gruchy) recently visited Purdue University and stopped at the Bowen Lab to snap a steel rod and explode a deck of cards with a hydraulic press.

Anne Bigane Wilson (BSCEM '79, MSCE '81) has been honored by ASCE with the 2017 Outstanding Projects and Leaders (OPAL) award for excellence and professionalism in overseeing significant construction projects.

Amit Varma, Professor of Civil Engineering, has been selected to receive the 2017 Special Achievement Award from the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC). This award provides special recognition to individuals who demonstrated particular achievements in structural steel education.

On 9 December 2016, civil engineering students represented Purdue in the 10th International Bridge Contest. The team consisted of undergraduate students Daixi Yang, Sijia Wang, Ziyu Liu, Cheng Qian, Scott Houldieson (not pictured), and graduate students Aishwarya Puranam and William Pollalis. Support for the team was provided by Prof. Santiago Pujol and his post-doc, Lucas Laughery.

Bechtel Group, Inc. Vice Chairman Bill Dudley (BSCE '74) has been named the recipient of the prestigious LNG "Executive of the Year" award at the 17th CWC World LNG Summit in Barcelona, Spain. Mr. Dudley earned the award for making "an outstanding contribution to the development and future of the LNG industry in the past year" according to the CWC Group, which organized the three-day event drawing more than 500 LNG leaders from around the world.

Over the past year there has been a strong interest in using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for transportation research. JTRP and Advanced Aviation Analytics Institute for Research (A3IR CORE) have developed a partnership where A3IR CORE was awarded a Certificate of Operating Authority (COA) for operating in Class D airspace adjacent to the Purdue Airport.

On December 2nd, JTRP hosted FHWA Indiana Division Administrator Mayela Sosa and her colleagues, Jermaine Hannon, Keith Hoernschemeyer, Jose Ortiz, and Karen Stippich. Highlights of the visit included tours of the Bowen Laboratory, CAI/S-BRITE Center, and Hampton Hall with displayed posters and demonstrations by JTRP researchers.

Rich Domonkos, Kathy Heath, and Jenny Ricksy were recognized as finalists for the 2016 College of Engineering Staff Awards of Excellence at the annual staff awards banquet held at the Shively Club on December 2nd. Jenny Ricksy was named the recipient of the Professional Achievement Award.

CE and EEE Professor Chad Jafvert is part of a Purdue-affiliated startup that has developed a low-cost, low-maintenance slow sand water filter technology to better provide clean and safe drinking water to schools and communities in developing countries around the world.

New research has shown that honeycomb "cellular" materials made of a shape-memory polymer might be programmed for specific purposes, from shock-absorbing football helmets to biomedical implants.

The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) awarded the 2016 Innovation Award for the Peer-to-Peer Adaptive Signal Control System in Moab, Utah. Purdue's Lucy Richardson, Chris Day, and Professor Darcy Bullock worked with UDOT colleagues Mark Taylor and Matthew Luker to evaluate this system.

Congratulations to Ron Klemencic (BSCE '85), Chairman and CEO of Magnusson Klemencic Associates and Charles Pankow Foundation Board Member, for receiving the Fazlur R. Khan Lifetime Achievement Medal from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH).

Xianyuan Zhan, a graduate student in Lyles School of Civil Engineering, was awarded the prestigious JSMF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Complex Systems this year. The James S. McDonnell Foundation was established in 1950 by aerospace pioneer James S. McDonnell to "improve the quality of life," and does so by contributing to the generation of new knowledge through its support of research and scholarship.

Professor Pablo Zavattieri's research laboratory in the basement of Purdue's Hampton Hall of Civil Engineering looks like a toy shop or carpenter's workshop. Geometric models, connected with splices of metal measuring tape and aluminum tubing, are scattered about. Nearby is a handful of brightly colored, triangular models made of orange, yellow, pink and green bendy straws. There are several foot-long, accordion-shaped origami paper models connected with a nut and bolt at each end that, when fully spun on their ends, rotate and collapse into an inch-thick disk.

Purdue University civil engineering professor Pablo Zavattieri will discuss how nature can inspire and influence high-performance materials at next week's session of Science on Tap. Zavattieri's talk, titled "Engineering 2.0: Millions of Years of Trial and Error Making High-Performance Materials," is at 6 p.m. on Oct. 27 on the top floor of Lafayette Brewing Company, 622 Main St., Lafayette. The informal lecture, sponsored by the Lyles School of Civil Engineering, the College of Engineering and Discovery Park, is free and open to those 21 and older.

Joe Sinfield, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, has been named Director of the College of Engineering Innovation and Leadership Studies Program. This program includes Engineering's Innovation and Leadership Minor for undergraduates in any major in Engineering, a graduate-level research component to fuel the program with research-derived insights into repeatable patterns of innovation success, and a service component to help enhance the innovation efforts of units and organizations across the campus.

Dedicated to amplifying impact and providing students with the tools to grow and succeed, the Purdue Lyles School of Civil Engineering recently completed construction of a new building, designed for student collaboration and competition.

Richa Ojha, Meenu Ramadas and Rao S. Govindaraju (Bowen Engineering Head and Christopher B. and Susan S. Burke Professor of Civil Engineering) were the 2016 recipients of the ASCE State-of-the-Art of Civil Engineering Award. The annual award is for scholarly review, evaluation, and documentation of the scientific and technical information needed by the profession.