CE News & Spotlights

The board of directors of the Fluor Corporation has confirmed the appointment of Carlos M. Hernandez (BSCE '76) as chief executive officer and named him a member of the board of the company.

Courtney Colosimo and Joshua Harmon were named this year's Margaret Julia Ward and Bevan Blau Lewis award recipients. The two awards recognize a graduating female and male student in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering for achieving academic excellence.

Rao "G.S." Govindaraju, Bowen Engineering Head of Civil Engineering and Christopher B. and Susan S. Burke Professor of Civil Engineering, has been named a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Only 220 of ASCE's more than 150,000 current members can call themselves Distinguished Members.

CE graduate student Reza Moini advanced to the final round of the Three Minute Thesis competition with his presentation titled, "Mimicking nature: can we 3D-print stronger buildings?"

Registration is now open for the 57th Annual CE Open, Friday June 14th at the Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex.

THANK YOU! In just 24 hours, the Lyles School of Civil Engineering received 212 gifts, amounting to more than $1.15 million. We are so incredibly thankful to everyone who supported us on Purdue Day of Giving!

The Purdue Society of Professional Engineers (PSPE) has been recognized with the Student Organization of the Year Excellence Award, presented to them by the Office of the Vice Provost for Student Life at the annual honors reception held on April 24th.

Rao "G.S." Govindaraju, Bowen Engineering Head of Civil Engineering and Christopher B. and Susan S. Burke Professor of Civil Engineering, has been recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) with the Ven Te Chow Award for lifetime achievement in the field of hydrologic engineering.

Professor Steven Kramer of the University of Washington delivered the 17th Leonards Lecture, "Performance-Based Geotechnical Seismic Design," on April 26th. The PGS Workshop, with a theme of "Geotechnics of Natural Hazards," was held in conjunction with the lecture.

Satish Ukkusuri, Professor of Civil Engineering, will be a keynote speaker at the 1st International Conference on Smart Tourism, Smart Cities and Enabling Technologies, referred to as The Smart Conference, May 1-3 at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

Mohamed Yamany, PhD candidate at the Lyles School of Civil Engineering, has been appointed to the Standing Committee on Bridge Management (AHD35) of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), one of seven program units of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The Purdue University Board of Trustees on Friday (April 12) ratified the naming of Robert J. Connor as the Jack and Kay Hockema Professor in Civil Engineering.

A team of Purdue civil engineering undergraduate and graduate students has won the inaugural national asphalt mixture design competition. Sponsored by CRH Materials Americas, Inc., the largest construction materials provider in North America, a total of 10 university teams competed to see which team could design the best performing asphalt mixture at the lowest cost.

A Purdue engineering professor will lead a new research institute dedicated to designing and operating deep space habitats. NASA announced Shirley Dyke will lead the new Resilient ExtraTerrestrial Habitats institute (RETHi) to be located in West Lafayette. Dyke is a professor of mechanical and civil engineering with a degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering.

The annual Purdue College of Engineering Faculty Excellence Awards honor faculty who have been selected by their peers as the most outstanding in fields such as research, engagement, mentoring, and teaching. Three Lyles School professors received awards at the 2019 ceremony – Larry Nies, Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental and Ecological Engineering; Santiago Pujol, Professor of Civil Engineering; and Andrew Whelton, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental and Ecological Engineering.

Purdue’s Discovery Park, in partnership with the Joint Transportation Research Program, the Purdue Policy Research Institute, and the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, is hosting a Connected and Autonomous Transportation Vehicle (CATV) workshop for Purdue faculty and research staff. The free event will take place 1-5 p.m. April 24 in the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Room 121.

Amit Varma, Karl H. Kettelhut Professor in Civil Engineering and Director of Bowen Laboratory, has been selected to receive the 2019 Shortridge Hardesty Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI). He will be presented the award on April 27, 2019, at the Structures Congress in Orlando, Florida.

A desire to explore new ideas and learn from the best is what attracted Ersal Ozdemir (BSCE '97) to study civil engineering at Purdue and then go on to take Giant Leaps by starting a construction company and bringing professional soccer to Indianapolis. "Purdue Engineering provided me with a strong foundation to be successful in life," Ozdemir says.