Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Penn State

November 19, 2008
The Hankin Distinguished Lecture will be held on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 at the Nittany Lion Inn, Ballroom A/B at 4:00 pm. Nick Retsinas, Director, Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University, will speak on "The State of Affordable Housing". For more information, please visit the Residential Housing page: http://www.engr.psu.edu/ce/divisions/residential/Hankin_lecture_series.html.

October 16, 2008
The Water Resources Engineering faculty are pleased to announce the 2008 Donald R. F. Harleman Lecture in Water Resources Engineering. The lecture, entitled "How Vegetation Alters Water Motion, and the Feedbacks to Environmental System Structre and Function" will be delivered by Dr. Heidi Nepf, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Nepf is a leading expert on the mechanics of water flow through vegetation and her work has made major contributions to our understanding of the larger role that vegetation plays in aquatic ecosystems. The lecture will be held on Thursday, October 16th at 4:30 p.m. in 102 Thomas Building on the University Park campus of Penn State. Refreshments will be provided at 4:00 p.m. A lecture abstract and biography for Dr. Nepf can be found at http://water.engr.psu.edu/harleman_2008.html.
The Harleman Lecture was instituted by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Penn State in 2002 and is held every autumn. Dr. Harleman (B.S., PSU, 1943) was awarded the Penn State Outstanding Alumni Award in 1979 and was named a Penn State Alumni Fellow in 1987. He was a Ford Emeritus Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the National Academy until his death in 2005.
The annual lecture is intended to enrich the faculty and students in the Water Resources Engineering Program at Penn State by providing contact with outstanding researchers and practioners in the field from outside the university. We also extend a special invitation to other faculty and students, and to local and regional scientists, government officials, and anyone else with an interest in water resources. We look forward to this event and we welcome your attendance.

July 23, 2008
David Hill, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, was recently awarded a TU GRANTS award from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands The GRANTS program was established by the TU in 2004 "in order to attract prominent members of the international academic community to Delft University of Technology to take up temporary positions." The program provides full funding for six months and will be used by Dr. Hill for visits to the TU during the summers of 2008 and 2009. Dr. Hill will be collaborating with faculty and graduate students in the Fluid Mechanics and Hydraulic Engineering sections of the Civil Engineering and Geosciences Department. His work will involve developing and improving stereo imaging and remote sensing techniques for the quantitative assessment of wave evolution in the surf zone.

July 10, 2008
Martin Pietrucha, associate professor of civil engineering, has been named the interim director of the Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation Institute (LTI), effective July 15.
Pietrucha takes over for John Mason, who served as the institute's director and associate dean of Graduate Studies, Research and Outreach in the College of Engineering. Mason was recently named associate provost and vice president of research at Auburn University.
A member of the Penn State faculty since 1990, Pietrucha is currently director of the LTI's Transportation Operations Program.
His experience includes work related to highway traffic operations, highway safety and human factors issues for public and private institutions. Pietrucha's research has focused on traffic signing, roadway delineation, pedestrian safety, highway geometric design, road safety audits and the visibility of commercial signing.
He is a fellow of the Institute of Transportation Engineers and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the National Research Council's Transportation Research Board and the Intelligent Transportation Society of America. Pietrucha is a licensed professional engineer in New Jersey.

June 24, 2008
Tanya Myers (MS) was named the 1st PHRC Fellow. The fellowship covers graduate assistantship and tuition and is awarded to an outstanding graduate student who works on a project directly related to the mission of the Pennsylvania Housing Research Center (PHRC). Tanya’s research deals with wind loads on low-rise residential structures.”

May 29, 2008
Glunt Fellows Announced
On May 7, 2008 the Glunt Committee met at the Penn State University campus and decided on the 2008/2009 Glunt Fellows. The recipients of the Glunt Fellowships are Maral Amini, Brian Wolfgang and Tanya Myers. Maral Amini is a PhD student (CE) working on affects of wind loads on low-rise buildings; Tanya Myers, an MS student (CE) works on updated wind loads for Pennsylvania, and Brian Wolfgang, an MS Student (AE) will work on heat and mass transfer through imperfectly insulated walls.
The J. Roger Glunt Fellowship (http://www.engr.psu.edu/ce/divisions/residential/Glunt.html) was endowed in honor of J. Roger Glunt, past President of the National Association of Home Builders. The Glunt Fellowship provides additional financial resources to cover travel, research and educational expenses. The Glunt Fellows also receive travel funds to attend the 2009 International Builders Show in Las Vegas – the largest professional show in the country.

May 27, 2008
Dr. Gordon Warn will join the department in August as an Assistant Professor. Dr. Warn completed his PhD at SUNY Buffalo is currently finishing up a post-doc at that same institution.

Dr. Norm Folmar has joined the department as the Director of the Undergraduate Program on June 1. Norm completed his PhD in 2004 and has since been teaching at Bucknell.

April 22, 2008
ASCE Committee on Student Activities presents the 2008 Region 2 Governors Award to Pennsylvania State University, University Park in recognition of excellence as an ASCE Student Chapter. Congratulations!

April 7, 2008
Congratulations to the Steel Bridge Team on their 2nd place finish at the AISC/ASCE Regional Student Competition this weekend at Lafayette College. The team will travel to Gainesville, FL, in late May to participate at the national level. University of Delaware narrowly took first place, while Lafayette came in third.

Congratulations, also, to the Concrete Canoe Team for their top 4 finish.

Also, we are pleased to announce that Penn State will be hosting the 2009
Regional Student Competition. A committee will be forming soon to begin planning for next year's competition. If you are interested in helping out, send me an e-mail (contact info below).

April 7, 2008
Glunt Scholar Puts Passion for Nature to Work on Storm Water
Katie Blansett, a 2006 recipient of the J. Roger Glunt/National Housing Endowment Undergraduate Scholarship, grew up kayaking and canoeing in rivers and lakes and with a healthy respect for the environment. Read More

April 2, 2008
Bruce Logan, Kappe professor of environmental engineering and the director of the Penn Sate H2E Center, was one of three people honored by the National Hydrogen Association (NHA) with the group's 2008 Award for Meritorious Service. He received the award, April 2, at the group's annual awards luncheon in Sacramento, California. According to Jeffrey Serfass, NHA's president, Logan is was honored for leadership in advancing hydrogen and fuel cell technology research and development. Serfass noted Logan's many accomplishments, including organizing and hosting three Hydrogen Energy Days; his work in bioenergy including novel and high-yield biological hydrogen production systems and the direct generation of electricity from biomass using microbial fuels cells; the establishment of the Penn State Hydrogen Fueling Station; and his numerous publications.

April 2, 2008
Valerie Watson, master student in enviromental engineering, has been selected to receive a 2008 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) award. This award is based on your abilities and accomplishments as well as your potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of the U.S. science and engineering enterprise.

March 28, 2008
The 2008 Kavanagh Lecturer is Dr. Leslie E. Robertson, Director of Design, Leslie E. Robertson Associates, R.L.L.P. The lecture will be held Thursday, April 3, 2008 in 129 Alumni Hall, HUB-Robeson Center at 7:30 p.m. The title of this year's talk is Bringing Together the Architect and the Structural Engineer. More information on the lecture is available at Kavanagh Lecture

January 25, 2008
Penn State Researchers are Part of UNESCO Award winning Center
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Science and Technology Center for Sustainability of Semi-Arid Hydrology and Riparian Areas (SAHRA) is one of two institutions which were awarded the 2007 International Great Man-made River Prize by UNESCO, the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization. The annual prize "rewards remarkable scientific research work on water usage in arid areas as well as areas subject to drought and also for the development of agriculture for the benefit of humanity and the environment."
SAHRA, headquartered at the University of Arizona, brings together researchers from several institutions including Penn State University. PSU is represented through Prof. Chris Duffy and Assistant Prof. Thorsten Wagener, both hydrologists working in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Duffy and Wagener work on improved understanding and prediction of the hydrology of semi-arid and arid regions of the world with other SAHRA researchers. SAHRA’s aim is to provide stakeholders and decision makers with scientific knowledge for improved water management and policy in dry regions through basin-focused multidisciplinary research.
NSF News Link: http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=110625&org=NSF&from=news

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