Courses

Civil and Environmental Engineers (CEEs) engage in the planning, design, construction, operation, retrofit, demolition, and reuse of large-scale infrastructure that forms the backbone of all societies and economies. CEEs work at the dynamic interface of the built environment, information environment, and natural environment. Therefore, societal domains that require CEE expertise include smart cities and construction, sustainable energy and buildings, connected and automated transportation systems, resilient infrastructure, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and water management. Students will explore how sensing, data science, environmental science, life cycle systems and economic analysis, and infrastructure design are integrated to create a built environment that meets the needs of smart and connected communities while enhancing sustainability. Students work on team-based design-build projects that introduce principles from environmental, structural, construction engineering, and project management. Students learn technical skills as well as methods for management and design considerations that include uncertainty, economics, and ethics, for modern and future infrastructure.

Civil and environmental engineering infrastructure is all around us. CEE infrastructure is integral to society's day-to-day operations, providing, for example, shelter, transportation, and clean drinking water. In this course, students will get a first-hand experience of civil and environmental engineering in action all around us. The course is comprised of lab sessions during which students will learn about and investigate infrastructure and phenomena in the built and natural environments on or near campus. Student coursework includes short assignments and reflections related to the lab experience.

Profound changes are affecting our environment, including climate change, habitat loss, pollution, and invasive species. Understanding ecosystems and their inhabitants and functions is critical to engineering a sustainable future for humans. This course is an introduction to ecology and biology for environmental engineers. Ecology topics include the relationships among organisms and between organisms and their environment; and adaptations, populations, communities, and terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Biology subjects will focus on microbiology, as bacteria are an analog for more-complex species. Microbiology topics include biological molecules, biochemical reactions, energetics, diversity of microbial metabolism, physiology, biofilms, biogeochemical cycles, and the degradation of pollutants.

The flow of fluids is important in many civil and environmental engineering applications ranging from water infrastructure and coastal engineering to bridge design. This course provides students with an introduction to fundamental concepts and methods in fluid mechanics. Topics covered in the course include fluid properties; pressure, hydrostatics, and buoyancy; open systems and control volume analysis; conservation of mass and momentum for moving fluids; viscous fluid flows and flow in conduits; dimensional analysis and similitude; open channel flows; lift and drag on immersed bodies; and differential analysis. Through application of these concepts, students will develop problem-solving skills and formulate models necessary to study, analyze, and design fluid systems essential to good engineering practice of fluid mechanics.

An understanding of fluid mechanics is greatly enhanced by hands-on experimentation and experience with the physical concepts of fluid flows. In this course, students will develop an ability to conduct experiments, take measurements, and analyze and interpret data in fluid mechanics. Topics covered include measurement of fluid properties; static forces on immersed surfaces; continuity and energy; viscous pipe flow; and open channel flow. Students will foster teamwork skills and an ability to creatively develop independent ideas around the description of fluid mechanics through small-group work with experimental apparatus and individual reports on the acquired data.

This class provides a general introduction to microorganisms in natural, engineered, and artificial environments. Selected topics include cellular architecture, energetics and energy conservation, growth and catabolism, evolution and genetics, population and community dynamics, water and soil ecology, biogeochemical cycling, microorganisms in wastewater, pollution attenuation, and bioremediation.

This course presents the application of microbiological systems for water and wastewater treatment. Fundamentals of modeling suspended growth and fixed film biological systems is followed by discussion of processes, including: aerobic heterotrophic growth, nitrification, denitrification, phosphorus removal, methanogenesis. Specific unit operations discussed include: activated sludge, trickling filters, fluidized beds, tertiary nutrient removal, and anaerobic digesters.

The purpose of this course is to introduce the student to the critical issues that surround the management of produced water from oil and gas development. The course discusses methods, equipment and tools used for testing, diagnosing, and minimizing water production from unconventional oil and gas wells. Reservoir engineering and surface facility aspects of water handling, treatment, re-injection and injection well fracturing are discussed. Emergent technologies that enable re-use of produced water are discussed. The economics of oil and gas production can be significantly improved through enhanced water management through improved handling and disposal, treatment and volume reduction, reuse and re-injection strategies. The course covers the fundamental theory, and the latest technological developments. It particularly emphasizes field application through lots of practical field examples, exercises and case studies.

Geology is the study of the Earth. The science of geology is traditionally divided into two broad disciplines: physical and historical. This course will focus primarily on physical geology through an examination of the basic structure and composition of the materials that comprise the Earth, and the processes that underlie major geologic phenomena. The course is divided into the following broad subject areas: Earth’s place in the Solar System; rocks and minerals (the materials which comprise the surface, crust and interior), internal processes (volcanic activity, earthquakes, plate tectonics and mountain building); external processes (physical/chemical weathering, erosion (transport of materials) by gravity, running water, ice and wind) and the landforms created by the interaction of internal and external processes. Throughout the course, an emphasis will be placed on how geological phenomena are linked together into large scale systems and how these systems interact to create the geological features we observe.

Environmental science is the study of patterns and processes in the natural world and their modification by human activity. This general education course will introduce interrelationships among the natural environment and humans, including the physical, chemical, biological, social, economic, technological, and governmental aspects of current environmental challenges. This course focuses on building the scientific framework necessary to understand and address environmental issues. We will explore the structure, function, and dynamics of ecosystems, interactions between living and physical systems, and how humans affect natural systems. We will also examine current issues regarding human impacts on environmental quality, including global warming, air and water pollution, agriculture, population growth, energy, and urbanization.