Civil and Environmental Engineering website | Activities | EEI Affiliates | EC

Faculty in the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department are heavily involved in Environmental Research in the general areas of water treatment technology, field and laboratory scale remediation of industrial contamination, point and non-point source pollution analysis, water resource systems modeling and management, surface and groundwater studies, environmental safety, risk analysis and environmental fluid mechanics. In addition to environmental research, the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department also participates in energy research. A few of the topics currently being study include bioelectricity production, microbial fuel cells, energy dependence on freshwater, and fossil fuel use for individuals and households.

Research areas include:

• Bioremediation of soil, sediment, groundwater
• Role of iron reducing bacteria on metals and radionuclides
• Researching pollutant and odorant removal from water and air
• Pollution prevention in foundries
• Tailoring of activated carbons for cleaning water and air.
• Aquatic chemistry with an emphasis on solid-liquid interfacial phenomena (adsorption, treatment of acid mine drainage, coagulation in water & redox and precipitation processes).
• Stochastic and numerical modeling of groundwater flow and solute transport
• Modeling large-scale hydrologic systems and space-time dynamical environmental models
• Stratified flows turbulent mixing, coastal processes and wave mechanics.
• Restoration of stream stability and habitat, sediment transport and sediment reduction through erosion mitigation.
• Environmental and chemical transport processes
• Biological wastewater treatment
• Surface water quality modeling
• Chromium (VI) emissions from industrial sources
• Environmental pollution control; solid and hazardous waste management; beneficial use of industry residuals
• Microbiology of wastewater treatment and polluted water
• Acidic mine drainage
• Finite element modeling of coupled hydrolic, geochemical and biological systems
• Bioenergy production
• Microbial fuel cells that directly produce electricity using bacteria
• Microbial electrolysis cells that can produce hydrogen or methane gas
• Power plant management and placement
• Fossil fuel use
• Flow and sediment transitions through bridges and culverts
• Probabilistic Projections of Watershed Services in US Headwaters under Climate Change Scenarios
• Climate Change Impact Assessment for Pennsylvania
• Understanding the Scaling of N Cycle Controls Throughout a River Network