Education

MEng in Smart Infrastructure Finance (SIF)

The Educational Program is housed in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, where it will be integrated in the Master of Engineering offerings.

Target Audience. It will be open to students across campus with interest in exploring and designing the financial revolution driving the next generation of sustainable infrastructure systems. Intended for engineering, business and policy students, as well as professional degree students, the Program will be offered as a CEE Master's degree or as a cross campus certificate option.

Curriculum for MEng (in approval process)

The course sequence is designed to reflect the integration of big data analytics, finance and infrastructure systems, with application domains of choice across a wide range of infrastructure systems. Our objective is to offer maximum flexibility, given the wide interests and domain knowledge expertise.

Required Core:

All students must complete a required core of courses covering infrastructure systems and financial concepts in capital budgeting and financing instruments, as well as analytical tools with exposure to optimization, stochastic processes, and statistics.

Infrastructure as a System: CEE 555 - Sustainable Civil Infrastructure Systems or CEE 567 (ESENG 567) Energy Infrastructure Systems
Infrastructure IoT: CEE 575 - Sensing for Civil and Environmental Engineering
Engineering Economics & Finance: CEE 531 - Construction Cost Engineering or CEE 561 - Engineering Economics and Finance
Optimization/Scenario Modeling: CEE 572. Dynamic Infrastructure Systems or CEE 552 Infrastructure Systems Optimization
Introduction to FinTech: CEE 686 - Environmental Finance or FIN 428 FinTech Innovations (Ross)

Electives/Concentration Areas:

In addition to the core courses, each student must take 3 elective courses sampled across 2 areas (including one course sequence) chosen in consultation with an advisor from the following concentration areas (example courses suggested):

Data-Driven Business Models: ENG 520 (Entrepreneurial Business Fundamentals), ENG 521 (CleanTech Entrepreneurship); EECS 408 (High Tech Entrepreneurship). For more comprehensive offerings see Center for Entrepreneurship (http://cfe.umich.edu/courses/)
Data science Principles and Applications: CEE 539 (Construction Management Information Systems), TO 640 (Big Data Management), EECS 545 (Machine Learning), 550/IOE 560/TO 603 (Bayesian Data Analysis), SI 618 (Data Manipulation and Analysis). For more comprehensive offerings see http://midas.umich.edu/certificate/approved-courses/
Financial Instruments for Infrastructure Investment: FIN 609 (Fixed Income Securities and Markets), FIN 624 (Private Equity), FIN 583 (Energy Projects), Fin 615 (Valuation). For more comprehensive offerings see http://www.bus.umich.edu/Courses/default.aspx

Seminar Participation:

Students are expected to attend a seminar course aligned with the core and electives of the program to become exposed to learnings from professionals in the construction, finance, or management industries. Suggested seminar series include the Michigan Institute for Data Science seminar series (Fall), The Mitsui Finance Seminar Series (Ross, Fall), the Erb Institute seminar series (Strategy 525; Winter) and the Construction Management and Engineering (Winter) seminar.

For-credit internship course (CEE 562. 1.5 credit hours; 6 weeks).

All students will be required to participate in an internship program with the financial services, data management, or smart infrastructure industries. The internship will be for credit, and will provide for professional exposure across non-traditional CEE industries. Examples include MSCI, Nephila Advisors, Credit Spectrum, Dana Investment Advisors, Silicon Valley Bank, BlackRock, and NGOs such as WWF-Finance, Ceres, and WRI-Finance. The course objectives are to apply program knowledge and contribute to internship goals, which may include in-depth understanding of industry dynamics, business models, market trends, and investment analytics in a single or multiple industry sector, as related to infrastructure finance.

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Sample Course Selection

CEE 501. Sustainable Infrastructure Finance Seminar (3 Cr.)

Without basic infrastructure such as transportation, energy and water, neither the economy, nor society can function. The convergence of the credit crisis of 2007-2008, the advance of big data and cloud computing, and the integration of smart systems in infrastructure, has resulted in how infrastructure is financed. This seminar will highlight the shifts in business and financing models in infrastructure systems, and how startups and new market opportunities for infrastructure firms are created.

"Banks, hedge funds, and other alternative asset investors such as private equity are becoming excited about investments in infrastructure, ...and along the way change the business models of this asset class" (Neil Grigg, 2010. Infrastructure Finance: The Business of Infrastructure for a Sustainable Future. Wiley).

CEE 586/NRE 557. Industrial Ecology (3 Cr.; Winter)

Analysis of material and energy flows in industrial and ecological systems to enhance eco-efficiency and sustainability in meeting human needs. Methods: life cycle assessment quantifies energy, wastes and emissions for materials production, manufacturing, product use, and recovery/disposition; life cycle design integrates environmental, performance, economic, and policy/regulatory objectives.

This interdisciplinary course also includes a series of industrial/municipal site assessments (one-credit optional).

CEE 555. Sustainability of Civil Infrastructure Systems (3 Cr.; Not scheduled)

Life Cycle Cost Analysis and Life Cycle Analysis – Methods and Applications in Civil Infrastructure Systems; Building Energy Modeling and Simulation; Energy Management in Buildings; Impact of Building Occupants and Behavioral Challenges; Renewable Energy and Efficiency in Buildings; Existing Buildings and Technical/Social Challenges of Energy Retrofits; and Building Certifications (e.g., LEED)

Fin 565, Real Estate Development: Fundamentals (3 Cr.; Winter)

Cities with Vitality: How to Create Lively, Transit Oriented Downtowns and Liveable Neighborhoods...And How to Own a Piece of the Action. This course is an interdisciplinary course of about 40 MBA, MUP, MUD, Architecture, Public Policy, Law, Landscape Architecture, Construction Engineering and SNRE graduate students working to understand the art and science of creating walkable, mixed use, transit oriented downtowns and livable neighborhoods.

ENG 686/ChE 686. Environmental Finance (3 Cr; Fall)

Sustainability Finance captures the entire spectrum of financing, trading, and investment approaches that has the objective to reduce emissions, scale capital allocations, and reduce material environmental risk in portfolios, while driving ‘green growth’. Once mainly focused on carbon markets (emissions trading) and CleanTech investing (venture capital), environmental finance has become an entrepreneurial innovation space with applications encompassing the entire finance value chain, and all investment vehicles.

The purpose of the course is to help students understand how to structure funds using the investment vehicles available in this space to mainstream and mission-driven investors.

This course examines how established practices, procedures and tools from within the mainstream financial market are being adapted to integrate ESG criteria, in the pursuit of financial performance goals from both an investor and corporate perspective. The course will further explore how new entrepreneurial ventures are starting to disrupt the environmental finance environment.

CEE 501/NRE 501. Business Water Risk and the Capital Markets (1.5 Cr.; Fall B)

This 7-week course presents an overview of how water has impacted risks to businesses and their supply chains, and how corporate financial managers and institutional investors are starting to incorporate risks in their accounting and asset allocations. The challenge is how the information from the physical world is translated in the financial world, and vice versa. It is often perceived that the proper risk management strategy for water in a corporate context is technology-based (new supply, recycling, monitoring, etc.).

This course will explore corporate water risk and financial response strategies, and discuss commercial tools available to sustainability, corporate and financial managers. This include corporate water footprinting, regional asset risk mapping (Aqueduct), corporate operational risk assessment (Water Risk Monetizer), and financial asset risk signaling (WaterBeta).

CEE 567. Energy Infrastructure Systems (3 Cr.; Winter)

Energy is the preeminent issue of our time. During the transition from coal to sustainable energy sources, society faces a multitude of challenges. The engineer's role will be to evaluate various energy resources with regard to factors such as their environmental effect, production cost and associated technical challenges.

The course addresses the technologies and economics of electric power generation, transmission and distribution. Centralized versus distributed generation, and fossil fuels versus renewable resources, are considered in regard to engineering, market and regulatory principles. Students develop an understanding of the energy challenges confronting society and investigate technologies that seek to address future needs.

Prerequisites: CEE 230, MECHENG 336, CHE 330, or equivalent recommended.

Fin 583 (Ross). Energy Project Finance (1.5 Cr.; Winter A)

The energy industry is undergoing its biggest transition since the widespread adoption of electricity. A convergence of factors - Global warming, new technologies, resource constraints, shifting global demographics, and unpredictable global policies - has put in motion what will be the largest industrial transition in history. Harnessing and using energy productively is enormously capital intensive.

Deploying capital into energy projects is complex, requiring investors to manage the diverse range of policy mechanisms, identify or develop the necessary supporting infrastructure and understand volatile markets and politics. The 6-week Energy Finance course will examine the economic drivers for energy investments and the fundamentals of financing energy projects. It will also cover traditional financial modeling tools used in the oil and gas industry, project finance models popular in the renewable energy industry, and new innovative financial mechanisms used by corporations involved in energy efficiency and demand response.

Every week a guest speaker from the energy industry will lead students through a new financial model used to address a real world energy issue, allowing students to fine tune their analytical tools through interaction with professionals who use these tools on a regular basis. It will include three Excel based modules on modeling energy projects.

ENG 520. Entrepreneurial Business Fundamentals (for Scientists and Engineers; 3 Cr, Winter)

You know the science, but do you understand how investors and corporate managers weigh the commercial future of science to make investment decisions? Do you understand how to identify business opportunities that may be enabled by new research? Understanding the business framework beyond “cost” is key to both creating value for the organization—from small entrepreneurial to large corporate organizations—and having that organization understand the value of your efforts.

This class covers the fundamentals of entrepreneurial business development, including: Value System Design and Analysis; Blue Ocean Strategy; Finance; Corporate Strategy; Marketing; Introduction to Business Design.

The course is taught using the KeyStone Compact assessment methodology (www.corymbus.co). This toolset will allow you to understand the business drivers behind capturing value from your science or idea (‘Positioning for Value Capture’), and the type of financing that best matches your potential business structures (‘Investment Grade’).

ENG 521. CleanTech Entrepreneurship (1.5 Cr.; Winter B)

CleanTech Entrepreneurship encompasses technology, service and business model innovation in the broader sustainability space. Global policy initiatives such as the Paris Accords on Climate Change are catalyzing research and innovation in transportation and mobility, energy, water, smart grid and beyond. This opportunity has accelerated open innovation in the corporate world, as well as investment in entrepreneurial startups.

The purpose of the course is to provide assessment tools to help you understand how entrepreneurs and investors capture value the market, in the broader domain of ‘CleanTech’. What makes a company investable?

We start with the end goal in mind: Investments have to generate returns, whether debt, venture capital, private equity, strategic corporate investment, or alternate forms of investment. Then we will work our way back to the various technology domains and their associated value systems, an understanding of the how and why of value distribution, and the design of business models. Students work with companies in a wide range of CleanTech domains (www.cleantech.org), take apart their business model and product positioning, rigorously assess the company’s strategy, and reposition the company to become equity-investable.

EECS 545. Machine Learning (3 Cr.; Winter)

The goal of machine learning is to develop computer algorithms that can learn from data or past experience to predict well on the new unseen data. In the past few decades, machine learning has become a powerful tool in artificial intelligence and data mining, and it has made major impacts in many real-world applications.

This course will give a graduate-level introduction of machine learning and provide foundations of machine learning, mathematical derivation and implementation of the algorithms, and their applications. Topics include supervised learning, unsupervised learning, learning theory, graphical models, and reinforcement learning. This course will also cover recent research topics such as sparsity and feature selection, Bayesian techniques, and deep learning. In addition to mathematical foundations, this course will also put an emphasis on practical applications of machine learning to artificial intelligence and data mining, such as computer vision, data mining, speech recognition, text processing, bioinformatics, and robot perception and control. The course will require an open-ended research project.

CEE 575. Sensing for Civil Infrastructure Systems (3 Cr.)

Prerequisite: Physics 240. (3 credits)

Sensor technologies for civil infrastructure. Fundamentals of sensor theory, fabrication, operation and deployment. Data acquisition and management methods for large-scale sensor networks. Optimal sensor placement. Data to decision support systems. Physics-based and data-driven interrogation methods for system identification, estimation and control. Case studies of deployments in built and natural environments.

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