Swanson School Civil and Environmental Engineering Fall 2014 Newsletter

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CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL

ENGINEERING

FALL 2014

Welcome from the Chair

As we begin a new semester at Pitt I’m pleased to bring you the latest news from the Department of Civil and

Environmental Engineering. This is another banner year at the Swanson School, with a first-year class of nearly 560 students, average SAT scores of 1395 (a 15 point increase over the previous year), nearly 75 percent in the top tenth of class rank, and a 4.2 average GPA. Likewise, enrollment in Civil and Environmental Engineering continues to be strong, with 287 undergraduate students (sophomore through senor) and 181 graduate students (57 PhD and 124 MS). We graduated 89 BS, 53 MS and 15 PhD who have moved on to positions within academia and industry.

The research throughout our department the past year has been tremendous, with a growing number of faculty applying their expertise in areas such as hydrodynamics, water reuse, computational mechanics, fracture mechanics and concrete materials toward safer hydraulic fracturing methods. In July we were proud to be a sponsor at the ASCE Shale Energy Engineering Conference in Pittsburgh, and in August we hosted our inaugural North American Wellbore Integrity Workshop, a special forum to discuss issues involving wellbore integrity throughout the shale gas industry. Being able to contribute toward environmentally safe shale gas extraction and production, especially with respect to water management, has become one of the hallmarks of our program.

The application of environmental practices within our discipline is also an important part in our research and our students’ classroom experience. For example, Dr. Kent Harries has a long-standing bamboo research program to establish the framework and tools required to evaluate the material and mechanical properties of full-culm bamboo. Dr. Xu Liang received 2014 Carnegie Science Environmental Award for advancing the area of land surface modeling and her important contributions in discovering fundamental laws that govern water and energy cycles. Our students created a new chapter of Bridges to Prosperity, a nonprofit organization that designs and builds footbridges alongside isolated, rural communities in underdeveloped countries, and have already won major national recognition for designing a zipline at Foxfire Mountain in Sevierville, TN. You can read more about these newsmakers in the newsletter.

All of this fits perfectly with Pitt’s Provost, Dr. Patricia Beeson, declaring this as the Year of Sustainability at Pitt. It’s a proud tribute for us since it was our own alumnus, Jack Mascaro, founder and chair of Mascaro Construction Company L.P., who first helped to launch sustainability programs within the Swanson School, and now has helped to inspire and support a university-wide, cross-curricular sustainability program through the Office of the Provost. We’ll recap many of those events in our next issue.

As always, thank you for your support of the Department, and I look forward to hearing from you. And if you plan to attend the biannual Engineering Sustainability Conference in Pittsburgh next April, please make time to visit us at Benedum Hall.

Best,

Radisav Vidic, PhD, P.E. William Kepler Whiteford Professor and Chair

2 | Fall 2014 n ENGINEERING.PITT.EDU

University of Pittsburgh Announces

$37.5 Million Investment in Support of Sustainability Academics and Research

To mark the tenth anniversary of the University of Pittsburgh’s Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation (MCSI)

and to build upon the ongoing philanthropy of two of Pitt’s most generous donors, Pitt officials announced on April 14, 2014 a new $37.5 million funding initiative comprising various endowments and current funds to support sustainability-related academics and research. Through the leadership of a new Sustainability Task Force, established by the Office of the Provost, the University will extend sustainability initiatives throughout Pitt’s academic programs and research initiatives.

According to Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg, Pitt’s historic commitment to sustainability was inspired greatly by John C. “Jack” Mascaro (ENGR ’66, ’80G), founder and chair of

Mascaro Construction Company L.P., and John A. Swanson (ENGR ’66G), founder of ANSYS, Inc., both of whom also have contributed toward the University’s investment in this new sustainability initiative.

“Since its founding in 2003, driven by the vision and philanthropy of Jack Mascaro, the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, which is head-quartered in the Swanson School of Engineering, has helped to initiate, organize, and support a wide-range of important educational and research initiatives and has helped to establish our University as a highly respected center for work-of-impact in the broad area of sustainabil-ity,” Nordenberg said. “On behalf of the entire University community, I want to thank Jack, both for sharing his ideas and for investing in them, providing much of the intellectual and financial

impetus for this effort to imbue sustainability throughout the curriculum, across the University, and into the community at large.

“I also want to recognize Provost Patricia E. Beeson for her leadership in creating a program that will extend throughout our University, and to thank Gerald D. Holder, the U.S. Steel Dean of the Swanson School, for helping to build Pitt’s strong foundation for sustainability in our School of Engineering.”

According to Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor Beeson, the University’s sustainability initiative is grounded in its established success within the

Pictured from left to right are Joe Fink, Patricia E. Beeson, Michael Mascaro, John Mascaro, Jack Mascaro, Jeff Mascaro, Gerald D. Holder, Mark A. Nordenberg

n Fall 2014 | 3ENGINEERING.PITT.EDU

Swanson School, and this new investment recognizes the potential it has as a University priority to impact academic programs, research, and student engagement across the University and to build on key partnerships with business units and the community.

“Jack Mascaro’s initial gift helped to establish our first academic sustainability programs at the Swanson School of Engineering, through the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation,” Beeson said. “Over this past decade, the Mascaro Center and the Swanson School have successfully developed an educational and research model that can serve as the foundation for impact throughout the greater University of Pittsburgh community.” According to the provost, the newly committed resources will bring the total to approximately $60 million of support for sustainability since MCSI’s founding ten years ago.

The new initiative is being led, in part, by the provost’s Sustainability Task Force, which comprises faculty representatives from across campus. This task force – which is chaired by Eric J. Beckman, who is MCSI’s codirector and the George M. Bevier Professor of Engineering – is charged with three goals: to catalyze interdis-ciplinary sustainability research; to enrich the undergraduate and graduate program offerings in the area of sustainability; and to further enhance Pitt’s national recognition in sustainability. The task force, formed in fall 2013, has already developed plans to expand the University’s curricular offerings in sustainability to include a campus-wide certificate for undergraduate students and a set of master’s-level degree programs that will have a broad focus in engineering, business, and public policy.

Beeson added that Pitt’s new sustainability initiative honors Mascaro’s original passion for establishing MCSI and sets the center on a course for a greater impact. “Throughout his relationship with Pitt, Jack has never thought of ‘sustainability’

as merely a branding statement or green-washing, but rather a philosophy that should influence every action and interaction within the University and without, both now and especially in the future,” Beeson said.

“From the beginning, I wanted the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation to pursue outcomes that would have a true impact on Pitt and the community, rather than remain as research housed in a lab or published in a journal,” Mascaro said. “The Swanson School and the Mascaro Center have shown the impact that sustainability can have on communities as close as Pittsburgh’s Larimer neighborhood to villages as far away as Panama and Brazil.

“My family and I believe that now is the proper time for the University itself to engage in a multidisciplinary approach that can embed sustainable practices and inquiry across academic programs and into the day-to-day life of everyone associated with Pitt. It is our goal to see the University be nationally recognized as a great leader in sustainable education while positively impacting the community and economy with its efforts in sustainability through the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation.”

The Swanson School, which was able to expand its Benedum Hall of Engineering facilities beginning in 2007 through gifts from both Mascaro and the school’s namesake, John Swanson, will continue to serve as MCSI’s physical home.

“I’m gratified by the successful stewardship of my contributions to Pitt by Chancellor Nordenberg, Provost Beeson, and Dean Holder, and pleased by the Swanson School’s impact on the University as a whole, especially with respect to sustainability,” said Swanson, a member of the University’s Board of Trustees. “I am proud to join Jack Mascaro in contributing to the provost’s new initiative, which I believe will greatly benefit our students and fac-ulty as sustainable practices become even more integral to our professional and personal lives.”

Holder hopes that departments and centers across Pitt’s Oakland campus can learn from what his administration has accomplished through the impact of MCSI, Mascaro, and Swanson.

“Jack and John have been both colleagues and contributors in helping us establish programs that now serve as the foundation for a broadened University commitment,” Holder said. “Sustainability has had a positive impact on the Swanson School, from enhanced academic reputation and diverse study abroad initiatives, to stronger community relations with nonprofits, schools, and industry, to positively impacting student life. We are indebted for the support of Jack Mascaro and John Swanson, and thank them for contributing to such a rich legacy of sustainability at Pitt.”


Professor Lawrence C. Bank Named 2014 Landis Lecturer at Pitt’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Lawrence C. Bank, PhD, PE, FASCE, professor of Civil Engineering at The City College of New York, was named the 2014

Landis Lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering. Presented by the Swanson School’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Dr. Bank was recognized for his contributions to the field of structural engineering at a ceremony on February 13, 2014 in Pitt’s Frick Fine Arts Auditorium.

The Landis-Epic Lectureship was established by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in 1991 in honor of Donald H. Landis, president of Epic Metals Corporation and a 1952 graduate of Pitt. Mr. Landis is nationally recognized as a leader in the design and construction of cold-formed steel structures. This distinguished lectureship is made possible through the generosity of Mr. Landis.

Dr. Bank’s lecture, “Is Structural Engineering Education Sustainable?” explored the question of whether structural engineering as a part of the Civil and Environmental Engineering undergradu-ate curriculum addresses the social, environmen-tal and economic agenda of sustainability. He also discussed the roles which structural engineers should play in sustainable development, and whether structural engineering as currently

taught in the U.S. requires a greater emphasis on sustainability.

“Dr. Bank is a leading researcher in the mechanics and design of composite materials and structures and sustainable buildings and materials,” noted Kent A. Harries, PhD, FACI, P.Eng., associate professor of structural engineering and mechanics at Pitt. “As population growth and climate change impact not only what and where we build, but how human lives are impacted, we as engineering educators need to consider whether a more holistic approach to sustainable engineering is necessary in the classroom. And as structural engineers, what greater role should we play in helping to guide sustainable engineering practices.”

About Dr. Bank

Lawrence (Larry) Bank has taught statics, mechanics of materials and structural analysis to undergraduates at both private and public schools for the past 30 years. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the City College of New York (CCNY). From 2008-2010 he was the Program Director for the Structural Materials and Mechanics Program (SMM) at the National Science Foundation (NSF). He served as the lead Program Director the 2010 EFRI Solicitation focused on the Science of Sustainable Buildings (SEED).

Dr. Bank received his BSc degree from the Technion in Israel in 1980, and his MS and PhD degrees from Columbia University in 1982 and 1985, respectively. Prior to that, Dr. Bank studied in the Schools of Civil Engineering, and Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa. Early in his career he worked as a Construction Engineer with Nizan-Inbar Project Management, and as a Structural Engineer with Skilling, Helle, Christiansen, Robertson (SHCR) – now Leslie Robertson and Associates (LERA). He has been a faculty member at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, The Catholic University of America and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Bank’s primary research is in the areas of the mechanics and design of composite material structures with an emphasis on civil and infrastructure applications, sustainable buildings and materials, and paperboard materials and structures. He has authored numerous technical publications in these fields, holds a number of patents and is the author of the widely-used textbook “Composites for Construction: Structural Design with FRP Materials” (Wiley, 2006).


“This workshop presented a great opportunity for us to discuss the latest research and innovation to make wellbore integrity a safer part of shale gas exploration,” Dr. Iannacchione said. “We hope to continue these discussions each year and contribute to advancing the technology.”

Photo by Matt Grasinger

The workshop was attended by a diverse group of consulting, industry, service, government and universities including:

•ABARTA Energy

•ALL Consulting LLC

•Anadarko Petroleum

•Apache Corporation

•Atlas

•Base Trace

•Benge Consulting/BHI

•Cabot Corp.

•Chesapeake Energy

•Chief Oil & Gas LLC

•Colorado State University

•CONSOL Energy Inc.

•Cornell University

•CSI Technologies LLC

•Doull Site Assessment

•East Management

•Echelon Applied Geosciences

•EnviroClean Products & Services

•Environmental Defense Fund

•GeoFirma

•Halliburton

•Kriebel Resources

•LORD Corp.

•Los Alamos National Laboratory

•MNR, Petroleum Operations Section

•Moody and Associates, Inc.

•National Energy Technology Laboratory

•Natural Resources Canada

•Penn Environmental & Remediation Inc.

•Penneco Oil

•Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection

•Pennsylvania Department of Natural Resources

•Pennsylvania State University

•PGE

•Range Resources

•RJ Lee Group

•Schlumberger

•Shell

•Stantec

•Syracuse University

•Talisman Energy USA

•Texas Keystone Inc.

•University of Guelph

•University of Pittsburgh

•University of Waterloo

•URS

•US EPA

Civil Engineering Department Hosts Wellbore Integrity Workshop with Key Stakeholders

This summer the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering hosted a special forum to discuss issues involving wellbore integrity

throughout the shale gas industry. The North American Wellbore Integrity Workshop, a result of the Department’s breadth of research into the technology surrounding unconventional gas development, was designed to provide new perspectives on industry best practices and the latest research from academia, government, and industry.

The workshop was developed and organized by assistant professors John C. Brigham and Andrew P. Bunger and associate professors Julie M. Vandenbossche and Anthony T. Iannacchione.

“Wellbore integrity, in concept, represents our ability to mitigate environmental harm when drilling, cementing and completing oil

and gas wells. If wellbores don’t have integrity, they can provide a conduit for gases and fluids to migrate along the wellbore annulus or through fractures in the adjacent rock formations,” Dr. Iannacchione explained. “If gases and fluids are in abundance and travel some critical distance, they can adversely impact nearby water supplies and threaten the viability of the well. Identifying the factors affecting wellbore integrity is a critical need and represents a significant goal of this workshop.”

The workshop sessions focused on six key areas: Well Construction and Mechanical Integrity Assessment; Wellbore Materials; Wellbore Gas Migration; Bridging the Gap Between Research and the Field; Contaminant Fate and Transport; Methane Variability in Aquifer Systems & Gas Geochemistry of the Appalachian Basin.


NSF Grant Helps Pitt’s Researchers Explore Large-scale Wireless Sensor Networks for Remote Environmental MonitoringBy Soniya Shah

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Indiana University hope to improve the

ability of researchers to collect greater amounts of field data through the development of large-scale wireless sensor networks (WSN). The researchers at the both universities were awarded a parallel grant of $465,582 in total, with $232,474 to Pittsburgh through the Division of Computer and Network Systems of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The team’s research focuses on advances in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and the opportunities they enable for large-scale environment monitoring applications.

Principal investigator at Pittsburgh is Xu Liang, PhD, professor of civil and environmental engi-neering in the Swanson School of Engineering. Dr. Liang’s research focuses on the laws that govern water, energy, and carbon cycles, and how these cycles affect the health of the environment.

The research is fundamentally important because an extension of the battery lifetime for large scale viable WSNs would allow an extended lifetime for field monitoring, which in turn would allow for the effective and efficient collection of valuable field data at unprecedented high special densities and

long time durations. The research is specifically focused on ecohydrology, an interdisciplinary field that studies the interaction between water and ecosystems.

“In the end we want to improve our understanding of how some of the ecohydrological processes behave at different spatial scales,” says Liang. “The ultimate goal is to substantially reduce the prohibitive cost of large-scale WSN deployments for scientific, national security and military purposes by creating a new paradigm of optimal design, development, and management/operations for these WSNs to significantly extend their lifetimes and have them help us find solutions to the challenging ecohydrological problems.”

The project investigates the energy-efficient networks through a large, outdoor WSN using a testbed provided by the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania’s Beechwood Farms Nature Reserve, about fifty minutes from campus. The research uses the testbed to study innovative compressed data collection in WSN under wireless link dynamics through an integrated theoretical and empirical approach. The testbed

also allows the team to investigate the hetero-geneity of hydrological processes within the ecosystem. The WSN allows for collection of valuable ecohydrological data at a finer resolution, which is much better than what satellite data has provided in the past. This data helps to explore certain fundamental ecohydrological laws.

By using this particular testbed, researchers at the Indiana University are also able to develop a novel and rigorous framework of topology tomography for real-world WSNs operated in noisy communication environments. The developed framework can be essential not only for routing improvement, topology control, hot spot elimination and anomaly detection in practice, but also for the emerging compressed sensing-based data collection.

In addition, the project also creates an educational component for students. At the pre-college level, middle and high school students are invited to participate in two free summer camps during the summers of 2015 and 2016. The camps will be twofold. First, researchers will give lectures on the basics of what they are doing in the fields of environmental science and engineering as well as

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“In the end we want to improve our understanding

of how some of the ecohydrological processes

behave at different spatial scales”


wireless sensor networking. Second, the Audubon Society will give lectures on the reserve and the birds and plants that are a part of it.

“The camps will also have a hands-on component for students. We will show students how to use our instruments to measure hydrological variables and the WSN works using our real-world WSN testbed,” says Liang. “Our goal is to educate and stimulate students’ interests in science and engineering at their early development stages.”

Undergraduate students and PhD students, in addition to their direct participation in this research project, will also have a hand in this educational component. They will take a lead in the hands-on section with the middle and high school students in summer camps, as well as conduct their own creative projects based on the WSN testbed in Liang’s classes.

Carlos Angulo-Glavis, President of Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Columbia, receives a Chancellor’s Medallion from Radisav Vidic, PhD, Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Pitt. During his final year as Chancellor of the University, Mark A. Nordenberg honored several alumni with the Chancellor’s Medals, the most prestigious of all medals and medallions awarded by the University awarded to those who have left an indelible mark on the traditions, values and character of Pitt. President Glavis received his bachelor’s and master’s in civil engineering from Pitt in 1958 and 1960, respectively.

Pitt CivilE Students Participate in ITE Mid-Colonial District’s Annual Collegiate Traffic Bowl

On April 9, 2014 three undergraduate students from the Department of Civil

and Environmental Engineering – Jesse Wagner, Dylan Soller and Ivan Chauca – attended the Mid-Colonial District of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Collegiate Traffic Bowl competition in Harrisburg.

There were presentations from the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) Chief Engineer, Brad Heigel on the financial future of the Turnpike and Alan Williamson of the PTC about Automatic Electronic Tolling. The students also attended a tour of the traffic management center for the PTC.

After the presentations and tour the Traffic Bowl competition began. This is a competition similar to the game of Jeopardy that tests student’s knowledge of traffic engineering and transportation planning. The competing teams

were from the University of Delaware, Morgan State, Penn State, and Pitt. The double elimination tournament was led by a head to head match of Morgan State vs. Delaware. Penn State and Pitt then were matched in the first round competition. Despite Pitt’s finest efforts, Penn State squeaked by with a victory in the first round.

Penn State won the competition and will travel to Seattle and represent the district in the national competition this summer. This was the first traffic bowl that the Pitt ITE student chapter competed in and was a great learning experience. Next year they plan to compete again and wrestle away the district championship from Penn State.


PennDOT District 12’s Joe Szczur Receives 2014 Distinguished Alumni Awardin Civil and Environmental Engineering

Joseph J. “Joe” Szczur, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s District 12 Executive, was recognized by the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering

during its 2014 Distinguished Alumni Awards. Mr. Szczur received the Civil and Environmental Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award from Gerald D. Holder, PhD, U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering, during the ceremony with more than 250 guests at Pitt’s Alumni Hall on Thursday, March 27.

Mr. Szczur was recognized for his PennDOT career and his volunteerism with Pitt’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Mr. Szczur has been the District Executive in PennDOT Engineering District 12 since March 2004. Mr. Szczur is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown in 1984 with a degree in Civil Engineering Technology. He is responsible for nearly 800 employees covering Southwestern Pennsylvania including the four counties of Westmoreland, Washington, Greene and Fayette, at an operational budget of $300 million annually.

Under Mr. Szczur’s leadership the District was certified in ISO 9001 Project Delivery which gained national recognition and ISO 14001 Environmental. Mr. Szczur is also a graduate of American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), Leadership and Advanced Leadership Academies in Indianapolis, where he served as an instructor for strategic planning for the Academies for four years. Mr. Szczur serves on the University of Pittsburgh Advisory Visiting Committee and is the Chairman of PennDOT’s District Executive Council.

He and his wife, Lisa, have three children: Josh (attended West Point Military Academy for 2-1/2 years, and graduated from Shippensburg University and is a certified sporting clay instructor at Seven Springs); Bryan (graduated from Pitt in spring 2013 with a BSBA and now is a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, currently on active duty at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri), and Katie Jo (junior at Juniata College majoring in Health Sciences and Business Management, and captain of the soccer team).

Mr. Szczur’s extended family holds strong ties to the University of Pittsburgh. His wife Lisa is a 1986 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown with a BS in Secondary Education and a Master’s Degree in Education from St. Francis University.

Lester Snyder Establishes Scholarship for Armed Services Personnel

In honor of his father’s legacy at Pitt as well as his service to country, Lester C. Snyder III (’79 BSCE)

recently established the Lester C. Snyder Jr. Scholarship in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineer-ing. The scholarship provides financial support for CEE students who have served in the armed forces or actively participate in Pitt’s ROTC program.

Messrs. Snyder recently met with the scholarship’s first recipients: Joab Naylor E-6, 1st Class Petty Officer with the USN Seabees who is a second-year graduate student pursuing a dual master’s degree in civil engineering and business; and Paul Wozniak E-4, an ROTC student serving with the Pennsylvania Air National Guard who currently is in his junior year.

Lester Snyder Jr. graduated from Dormont High School in June 1942. He began his University of Pittsburgh studies in Civil Engineering in September 1942, and joined the ROTC. Before the end of his first semester, the entire ROTC was called to active duty and to basic training, and Mr. Snyder was sent to the Army Specialized Training Program at the University of Maryland to study engineering. Six months later he traveled to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds where he was promoted to Second Lieutenant and taught in the Aberdeen Training Center. He was then sent to Fort Knox, KY to oversee all ordinance shops and maintenance of tank gun rangers. In 1945 he went to Europe with the 60th Ordinance Group. Mr. Snyder would later attend some of the Nuremberg Trials before coming home in December 1946 with 90 dogs in tow – a unique mission to rescue dogs that had accompanied soldiers in the field, and find homes for them in the U.S.

He worked as a surveyor while taking night classes at Pitt until 1950 when he was recalled to the Army. At Red River Arsenal, TX he was assigned command of the 958th Ordinance Field Maintenance Company with 350 men and seven officers. He was quickly promoted to Captain, moving his men and equipment to Japan


Pictured from left to right are Dean Gerald D. Holder, Joe Szczur, Radisav Vidic.


Dan Budny Recognized by Purdue

In recognition of his tenure as a former faculty member at the Purdue University College of Engineering, Daniel Budny, PhD was inducted into Purdue’s Book of Great Teachers this December. Dr. Budny is associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and academic director of the First-Year Engineering Program at the Swanson School of Engineering.

Purdue’s Book of Great Teachers “bears the names of past and present faculty members who have devoted their lives to excellence in teaching and scholarship.” Honorees include past and present faculty members as chosen by students and faculty peers. During his tenure at Purdue from 1989-2000 Dr. Budny was a recipient of the Best Teacher Award in Engineering Education (1996) and the Charles B. Murphy Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award (1992-1993).

Dr. Budny has developed international service learning projects in South America for Swanson School engineering undergraduates. This past summer (2013) students in his International Senior Design Experience constructed a water distribution system in the indigenous Kuna Nega community near Panama City, Panama, with the support of Engineers Without Borders (EWB). In 2011 his international learning project to build a water distribution system in Tingo Pucará, Ecuador was recognized by EWB-USA with its Premier Project Award, which recognizes excellence in EWB-USA projects and highlights projects that deliver high quality, sustainable solutions to help meet the basic needs of partnering communities abroad.

He also serves as General Program Chair of the national First Year Engineering Experience Conference co-presented by Notre Dame University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Pittsburgh.

and Korea where he operated until December 1952. Then, thirteen years from starting his college career, Les was finally graduated with a Pitt Civil Engineering degree in February 1955.

Les became a licensed Professional Engineer in 1955 and began a 30-year career with Dravo Corp. In 1956 Les married his late wife Gay and had two sons. After his career with Dravo, he worked for Newberg for ten years where he helped to build the Pittsburgh International Airport. Les later consulted for ten years out of his home until age 80.

Both sons, Lester C. Snyder III (’79 BSCE) and George Snyder (’81 A&S) graduated from Pitt. Les has five grandchildren and his granddaughter Jenna Snyder attends Pitt Nursing, Class of 2015.


ECOGNITIONAWARDS R

DANIEL BUDNY

Pictured from left to right are Paul Wozniak, Lester C. Snyder III, Lester C. Snyder Jr., and Joab Naylor


Kent Harries Named IIFC Fellow

Kent Harries, PhD., FACI, FIIFC, P.Eng., Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was named a Fellow of the International Institute for Fiber Reinforced Polymer in Construction (IIFC). Dr. Harries is one of only 27 individuals worldwide to be named an IIFC fellow and only the sixth in the United States. Dr. Harries received the honor at the seventh international Conference on Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) Composites in Civil Engineering (CICE 2014), August 20-22 in Vancouver, Canada.

The recognition of fellow is a distinct honor for “senior members of the Institute who have achieved a position of high responsibility and have contributed significantly to the advancement of the field through research or practice, or both.” IIFC is the only international professional orga-nization dedicated to the use of fiber-reinforced composite materials (FRP) in Civil infrastructure, and its mission is to advance the understanding and application of FRP composites in the civil infrastructure, in the service of the engineering profession and society.

Anthony Iannacchione Receives Federal Appointment

Anthony T. Iannacchione, PhD, Associate Professor and Director of Mining Engineering, was invited to serve on the Mine Safety and Health Research Advisory Committee of the Centers for Disease Control by Past Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. The appointment was awarded March 6, 2014 and ends December 23, 2015. According to the CDC, The Mine Safety and Health Research Advisory Committee shall advise the Secretary, HHS; the Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); and the Director, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), CDC, on the conduct of mine health research, including making of grants and entering into contracts for such research (30 U.S.C. §812(b)(2), [Section 1 02(b )(2) of Public Law 91-173]). The committee shall also provide advice on the conduct of mine safety research. The committee shall evaluate the degree to which: 1) the mine research activities of NIOSH conform to those standards of scientific excel-lence appropriate to Federal scientific instructions in accomplishing objectives in mine safety and health; 2) the mine research activities, alone or in conjunction with other known activities inside and outside of NIOSH, address currently relevant needs in the field of mine safety and health; and

3) the research activities produce intended results in addressing important research questions in mine safety and health, both in terms of applica-bility of the research findings and translation of the findings.

Xu Liang Receives Carnegie Science Award

Xu Liang, PhD, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was a recipient of the Carnegie Science Center’s 2014 Carnegie Science Awards, sponsored by Eaton. Dr. Liang captured the Environmental category. The program honors awardees from more than 20 categories, including Corporate Innovation, Emerging Female Scientist, Entrepreneur, Leadership in STEM Education, and others. These individuals and companies have distinguished themselves by making unparalleled contributions to science and technology in various disciplines. Carnegie Science Center established the Carnegie Science Awards program in 1997 to recognize and promote outstanding science and technology achievements in western Pennsylvania. Celebrating its 18th year, the Carnegie Science Awards have honored the accomplishments of more than 400 individuals and organizations that have improved lives through their commitment and contributions to science and technology.

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Julie Vandenbossche Named Professor of the Year

Associate Professor Julie Vandenbossche, PhD, was named Professor of the Year by the Pittsburgh Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Dr. Vandenbossche’s academic and profes-sional interests are in the fields of concrete mate-rial characterization of concrete and the analysis, design and rehabilitation of concrete pavements. She is particularly interested in instrumentation and the modeling of pavement behavior. The focus of her current research is evaluating the proposed mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide, evaluation of pavements using a falling weight deflectometer, the use of instrumentation for monitoring the health of a pavement structure and the material characterization of concrete.

HonorsBLAISE BUCHA, Class of 2014: 2014 American Bridge Leadership Award from the Pittsburgh section of ASCE

GEORGE GREGORY ZAIMES, PhD Candidate: 2014 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (Advisor: Vikas Khanna, PhD)

MATTHEW WESCHLER, undergraduate: Metropolitan District Chi Epsilon Scholarship Award recipient

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E Bridges To Prosperity – Building a Better FutureBy Hannah Fernau

After only its first year, the Pitt chapter of Bridges to Prosperity, a nonprofit orga-

nization that designs and builds footbridges alongside isolated, rural communities in un-derdeveloped countries to improve healthcare,

education, and trade in these communities, received an award for its solution to improve the ease of designing and building a zipline at Foxfire Mountain in Sevierville, TN.

Students were asked to provide outputs including sag, maximum tension, and slope between the start and end points in our spreadsheet using inputs such as cable diameter and weight, rider weight, and length of the zipline. For its winning solution, the chapter was awarded a $1,000 prize, which it will contribute toward future trips.

“Bridges link two places together, giving us the freedom to move from Point A to Point B. But in developed countries, people usually take bridges for granted until they are in need of repair,” said Hannah C. Fernau, a junior majoring in civil and environmental engineering. “People living in isolated rural communities are affected by obstacles such as rivers and ravines which they must circumvent to reach the next town; a bridge can mean the difference between life and death. What better place than Pittsburgh, the City of Bridges, to start a new chapter of an organization that designs and builds bridges abroad?”

Last year, the chapter worked diligently to become established in hopes of completing a construction project during the summer of 2015 in Panama. Throughout the process, the Pitt design will be reviewed by Bridges to Prosperity’s technical advisory board, which ultimately approves the final design and construction plan. In September 2014, Pitt members attended the second annual Bridge Builder Conference in Winter Park, Colo. to learn about bridge building techniques as well as network with members of other chapters.

To learn more about Bridges to Prosperity, visit https://sites.google.com/site/b2ppitt or e-mail [email protected].

Graduating seniors Brik Zivkovich and Adam Celmo created an innovative poster for the 66th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics in Pittsburgh, November 24-26, 2013. “International Senior Design Service Learning Project: Creating a Water System for Kuna Nega Community in Panama City, Panama” included an iPad with a student-produced video of the water project. This is the third year that Pitt Engineering students have traveled to Panama to build new water supply systems for isolated villages.

742 Benedum Hall 3700 O’Hara Street Pittsburgh PA 15261

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH | SWANSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING | CEE NEWS | FALL 2014

Mark Your Calendars

The Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation at the University of Pittsburgh and the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education

and Research at Carnegie Mellon University will host the biannual Engineering Sustainability 2015: Innovation and the Triple Bottom Line, to be held April 19-21, 2015 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh. The conference brings together engineers and scientists from academia, government, industry, and nonprofits to share results of cutting-edge research

and practice directed at development of environmentally sustainable buildings and infrastructure.

This year’s plenary speakers include Christopher Flavin, Senior Fellow and President Emeritus of the Worldwatch Institute; and Richard Luthy, PhD, Silas H. Palmer Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University and Senior Fellow in the Woods Institute for the Environment.

For more information and registration, visit engineering.pitt.edu/mcsi/conference.

ENGINEERING SUSTAINABILITY 2015

Documents

Swanson School Civil and Environmental Engineering Fall 2014 Newsletter