Civil and Environmental Engineering Newsletter
The concrete canoe team showed their ingenuity during the 35th American Society of Civil Engineers Concrete Canoe Competition, paddling to a historic sixth win. The team now holds the record for the most all-time wins. WERC and ECi, two of our environmental engineering competition teams, also took first places in their respective competitions.
Our faculty continue to create a better tomorrow through their work both inside and outside the classroom. Some are working on intriguing projects that include researching climate change mitigation on a green-sand beach in Hawaii, laying the groundwork for offshore wind energy plants, and digging tidal records from two centuries ago to study how human intervention impacts coastal flooding. Read more
Eight environmental engineering students from Cal Poly won first place in a national design contest for inventing an online system that monitors virus removal during wastewater treatment, advancing the science of water reuse.
The members of Mustang Matrix competed in the 32nd annual WERC Environmental Design Contest that brings industry, government and academia together in search of innovative solutions to real-world challenges.
College students from across the country converge at New Mexico State University each year to compete for prizes that include more than $30,000, trophies and worldwide recognition.
A second Cal Poly team – CPIRALBLUE – claimed third place for a project that converted carbon captured at a power plant into spirulina algae to offset the cost of operation and make a profit.
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When a natural disaster leaves a staggering amount of debris in its wake, cleanup efforts kick into high gear as workers fast-track materials to local landfills – a practice the engineering and science communities are aiming to correct.
The Global Waste Research Institute hosted a recent workshop at Cal Poly to identify and discuss sustainable solutions to post-disaster debris, drawing 45 participants from a wide range of academic, industry and regulatory groups across the country, including several Cal Poly graduates. The workshop was funded by the National Science Foundation. Read more
Offshore wind energy is on its way to the West Coast and a Cal Poly engineering professor will play a crucial role in deciding where to tether giant floating turbines to avoid earthquake hot spots and safeguard whale migration routes.
For the first time ever, 373,268 acres of the outer continental shelf off Morro Bay and Eureka will be auctioned off on Dec. 6 for commercial-scale floating offshore wind energy development.Both wind energy areas have the potential to produce 4.5 gigawatts of offshore wind – enough to power more than 1.5 million homes as California aims to meet its 100-percent clean energy goal by 2045.
Government officials say the 376-square-mile Morro Bay Wind Lease Area is ideal for wind energy development because of its sustainable wind speeds, suitable water depths and access to existing transmission lines.“This area is ripe for generating offshore energy,” said Geotechnical Engineering Professor Robb Moss, whose research niche is developing forecasting tools to identify geological hazards that could threaten infrastructure. Read more
When a natural disaster leaves a staggering amount of debris in its wake, cleanup efforts kick into high gear as workers fast-track materials to local landfills – a practice the engineering and science communities are aiming to correct.
The Global Waste Research Institute hosted a recent workshop at Cal Poly to identify and discuss sustainable solutions to post-disaster debris, drawing 45 participants from a wide range of academic, industry and regulatory groups across the country, including several Cal Poly graduates. The workshop was funded by the National Science Foundation.
“We are trying to reuse and recycle materials and create value instead of sending everything to landfills,” said Nazli Yesiller, who serves as the director of the Global Waste Research Institute at Cal Poly and co-director of the NSF SUstainable Material Management Extreme Events Reconnaissance organization. Read more
An international team of experts from the environmental, geochemical and biological sciences — including a Cal Poly professor and two students — spent a month this summer at mobile research stations on Hawaii beaches to study a green volcanic mineral that captures the carbon dioxide driving climate change.
The team’s research will paint a clearer picture of the risks and impacts of radically accelerating the weathering of the mineral olivine by spreading large amounts onto coastlines where it can dissolve in seawater, increasing the rate of carbon dioxide absorption by the ocean.
Environmental Engineering Professor Yarrow Nelson, who is leading the research at Cal Poly, said the rise in global temperatures now requires more than the reduction of fossil fuels. Turning back the tide will necessitate carbon sequestration. Nelson received a $38,000 grant from Vesta — a public benefit corporation exploring how to harness the carbon-capturing power
A team of environmental engineering Cal Poly students proposed a regulatory plan to reduce emissions from vessels in the San Francisco Bay and won the Environmental Challenge International (ECi) at the Air and Waste Management Association Conference in San Francisco.
The team consisted of Julia Loew, Ramy Wahba and Molly Foster (traveling group), Anja Cronjaeger and Marcus Lira (who worked on the project but could not attend the conference). “We had to start completely at square one with a topic that none of us had any background in and a competition that none of us had participated in before,” said Molly Foster.
She noted a lot of trial and error in learning to research and work as a team on the project.“We had to branch out from purely technical work and consider regulations and human/environmental impacts, which broadened our understanding of the issues at play in California.” Read more
Back in the water after a two-year delay because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cal Poly concrete canoe team returned to its winning ways at the 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Concrete Canoe Competition on June 3-5, at Louisiana Tech University. The victory marks Cal Poly’s sixth championship in the 35-year history of the competition.
Competing with their space-themed canoe “Europa” against 19 other universities in Ruston, Louisiana, located about 240 miles north of New Orleans, seven Cal Poly civil engineering students and an environmental engineering major not only swept the races but also finished first in the technical presentation and technical proposal categories of the competition and second in the final product prototype. Université Laval of Canada finished second, Western Kentucky was third, Youngstown State was fourth and New York University-Tandon finished fifth.
Cal Poly also received the R. John Craig Memorial Award, which honors the New Jersey Institute of Technology, professor. Read more
Anurag Pande, civil and environmental engineering professor, and Pauline Faure, aerospace engineering assistant professor, have been recognized as Cal Poly award recipients for 2021-22. Each year, faculty and staff are nominated and recognized as exceptional members of the campus community.
Pande joined the College of Engineering in 2008 and has received numerous honors throughout his tenure. He is the first civil engineering faculty member to receive the Distinguished Scholarship Award at Cal Poly.
His research benefits students through hands-on opportunities and strong mentor relationships. Pande has secured more than 30 externally funded research grants totaling more than $2.5 million. His support for student research has resulted in 18 publications co-authored with his students. He has a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and a master’s degree and doctorate in civil engineering from the University of Central Florida. Faure was named a Learn by Doing Scholar Award recipient. Her project, ETOILES PowerSat, is described as “a small but mighty spacecraft to tackle climate change.” Read more
The Cal Poly Civil and Environmental Engineering Department handed out its first Young Engineer of the Year awards in May after the Industrial Advisory Board selected two alumni whose achievements have been recognized by their colleagues in both the environmental and civil engineering fields.
Laura Cremer, who graduated with an environmental engineering degree in 2010, is an environmental engineering manager at Amazon Web Services in San Francisco. She has been recognized in her career as a leader and outstanding young professional.
Diego Rivera, who graduated with a civil engineering degree in 2019, is a structural design engineer with LERA Consulting Structural Engineers in New York City. He has been recognized for his contributions in the design of pattern surface structures, and he continues to mentor current Cal Poly students. Read more
Professor Amro El Badawy has been honored as the recipient of three department awards: the Staff and Faculty DEI Award, the Don and Paula Heye Award for Outstanding Teaching and the Engineering Student Council Outstanding Professor in CENG Award. The DEI Award is given to someone who works toward a more inclusive environment on campus and senses the shared need for opportunities across Cal Poly’s diverse community.
The award serves as a reminder to support and encourage efforts across campus in the direction of a homogeneous environment for all. The Don and Paula Heye Annual Award for Outstanding Teaching is intended to recognize and honor the meritorious efforts of an individual in the College of Engineering who provides exemplary service to students through teaching. The Engineering Student Council Outstanding Professor in CENG Award is presented Read more
Civil Engineering Professor Dan Jansen was honored with the Don and Paula Heye Award for Outstanding Club Advising and the Engineering Student Council Outstanding Club Advisor Award.
The Don and Paula Heye Award for Outstanding Club Advising is intended to recognize and honor the meritorious efforts of an individual in the College of Engineering who provides exemplary service to students through club advising.
The Engineering Student Council Outstanding Club Advisor Award is chosen by the student council to honor an exemplary club adviser.
Jansen earned his doctorate in civil engineering from Northwestern University. He is currently overseeing graduate research that ties into his own research around earthen structures. Read more