Congratulations to Amit Varma for being named a 2011 Purdue University Faculty Scholar. The program recognizes outstanding faculty members at the West Lafayette campus who are on an accelerated path for academic distinction.

Essam Abdel-Aziz Sharaf (MSCE '80, PhD '84), the new prime minister of Egypt, is remembered as a good and honest man by the Purdue University civil engineering professor who mentored him for seven years.

Top federal and state transportation officials will kick off the 97th annual Purdue Road School, to be held March 8-10. Some 2,000 local and state transportation officials from throughout Indiana will participate in the event, sponsored by the Joint Transportation Research Program in cooperation with the Indiana Local Technical Assistance Program, both housed at Purdue.

Congratulations to Prof. Kumares Sinha on being awarded the 2011 James Laurie Prize by the ASCE Transportation and Development Institute.

CE faculty led in the development of a report summarizing the community vision for the future of earthquake engineering research. This report will be used to define the next generation of research and the role of the cyberinfrastructure and experimental facilities within the NEES network.

Congratulations to Thanos Tzempelikos, 2011-2012 recipient of the New Investigator Award by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.

In August 2010, we welcomed a new addition to the Civil Engineering Building's ground floor hallway. Once housed in the Potter Engineering Building, the Purdue University Slide Rule Display proudly exhibits more than 30 slide rules from the original collection of approximately 200.

Prof. Cary Troy is working with ITaP data visualization specialists to help provide some illuminating 3-D animations of environmental fluid mechanics processes affecting the Great Lakes.

Congratulations to Prof. Mete Sozen, honored by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute with the 2011 George W. Housner Medal for his extraordinary and lasting contributions to public earthquake safety through keystone research and the development and application of earthquake hazard reduction codes, practices and policies.

Congratulations to Prof. Satish Ukkusuri for being awarded the Council of University Transportation Centers New Faculty Award, recognizing outstanding teaching and research contributions to the transportation field by a new tenure track faculty member.

CE undergrad Matt Barnes excels not only in his studies, but in his passion for free running and parkour. These forms of urban acrobatics demand extreme discipline to accomplish, and are a way of life for Matt.

Civil engineers at Purdue University helped the Indiana Department of Transportation save more than $1 million over the past two years by using shredded tires as a new low-cost material in construction projects.

For most CE students the next few weeks will be all about completing homeworks and class projects, studying for finals and preparing for the winter break. For Courtney Gosewisch there will be all that...plus practicing to get ready to play volleyball on the biggest stage: the NCAA championship, which kicks off this week, and that will crown the national champion at the Final Four in Kansas City on December 18.