CE News & Spotlights

The Washington Business Journal has honored 51-year-old Steele Foundation LLC as one of the top multi-generational family-owned businesses in Greater Washington, in its fourth annual Family-Owned Business Awards competition. Owned and operated by a father-son tandem of Lyles School of Civil Engineering grads, Steele Foundation is one of only 15 family-owned businesses in this region to receive this year's honor, which exemplifies "overall excellence, innovation, ethics and philanthropy."

Congratulations to Rodrigo Salgado, Charles Pankow Professor in Civil Engineering, on being the new Editor in Chief of the ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering.

Dr. Andrea Rinaldo, Professor of Hydrology and Water Resources and Director of the Laboratory of Ecohydrology at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland, and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Padova, Italy, will be returning to Purdue this year as an alumnus (PhD 1983) and a member of the inaugural class of Neil Armstrong Distinguished Visiting Fellows. Dr. Rinaldo will hold a research workshop on the structural and functional dynamics of complex networks on Tuesday, April 2nd.

Lyles School of Civil Engineering graduate student Seyed Ali Ghahari and undergraduate student Margaret Hunter have been named recipients of the 2019 Edward J. Cox Memorial Transportation Scholarship Awards. The award is presented annually by the Indiana Section of the Institute of Transportation Engineers.

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

The Purdue Lyles School of Civil Engineering has been recognized – once again – as a top 10 graduate program in the country. U.S. News & World Report has released its national rankings of graduate programs for 2020 with Purdue Civil Engineering's Christopher B. and Susan S. Burke Graduate Program ranked #6 in the nation. The graduate rankings are computed from the responses to a survey sent to deans, heads, and selected senior faculty.

After leaving her home in Greece to study at Purdue, Vicky Keramida studied environmental engineering and took a giant leap to start her own international environmental engineering firm that is based in Indianapolis and 100 employees strong. "I think Purdue gave us the confidence that we could do anything we wanted," Keramida says.

Congratulations to Tariq U. Saeed, recipient of the 2019 College of Engineering Outstanding Research Award. The award recognizes excellence in graduate student research from across the College of Engineering. Tariq will be recognized at the Spring Graduate Student Awards luncheon through a certificate and a $2000 award.

Brandon Boor, Assistant Professor in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering, is the recipient of a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for his research into the formation, growth, and phase state of organic nanoaerosols in indoor environments.

The Neil Armstrong Distinguished Visiting Fellows program begins in March, bringing highly accomplished and recognized scholars and practitioners to collaborate on work with engineering faculty and students. These professionals visit for several weeks a year over the course of three years. Among them are CE alumnus Dr. Andrea Rinaldo of Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, and Dr. Randall Poston of Pivot Engineers consulting firm in Austin, Texas.

A paper by PhD student Irina Benedyk and Adjunct Professor of Civil Engineering Srinivas Peeta has received the 2018 Editor's Choice Award from the Springer journal Maritime Economics & Logistics.

Professor Jie Shan and cohort Charles Toth, Research Professor at Ohio State University, received the 2019 LiDAR Leader Award (2nd Place) from the International LiDAR Mapping Forum. They were recognized for their edited publication, Topographic Laser Ranging and Scanning.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has announced Lyles School of Civil Engineering undergraduate student Trevor Moore as one of ten 2019 New Faces of Civil Engineering in the College category. The 2019 honorees are rising stars, inspired and inspiring, many of them drawn to the profession by a desire to help others and protect the planet.

Anne Bigane Wilson (BSCEM '79, MSCE '81), President of Bigane Paving Co., has been named recipient of the 2019 Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award by the College of Engineering.

A Purdue University team, led by Civil Engineering Associate Professor Joe Sinfield, has developed a new method to detect the presence of certain hazardous solvents in water and soil.

Lisa L. Losada Rojas, PhD student at the Lyles School of Civil Engineering, has been awarded a $3,000 scholarship from the Women's Transportation Seminar (WTS) Greater Chicago Area chapter for the 2018-2019 academic year.

Area students will test their bridge design capabilities when they come to Purdue University for the annual Bridge Bust Competition. The event, now entering its 40th year, will include a total of 161 teams composed of 289 students from 18 schools in Indiana and Illinois participating in the event Friday (Feb. 22). It is hosted by Purdue's American Society of Civil Engineers.

The American Concrete Institute has named Purdue University with the ACI Award for University Student Activities.

A recently published paper co-written by a group of researchers including Shirley Dyke, Santiago Pujol, and Julio Ramirez, has been selected by ASCE as the Editor's Choice.