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Construction and Infrastructure Systems Engineering

Pieces of steel with the interlocking GT spirit mark of Georgia Tech attached to one of the poles. A work boot is in the background.

 

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The technological evolution of construction and infrastructure systems engineering in the last few decades demands a new generation of modern engineers.

Our students become those engineers — professionals who understand the accelerating pace of technology and how it impacts architecture/engineering/construction practice. They know how to build and manage civil infrastructure projects and systems that excel in safety, quality, operational, environmental and other requirements. But more than that, they learn to advance the cutting edge of technology.

Construction and Infrastructure Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech acts as the platform for technological change in the industry. As a result, our graduates help their organizations work smarter and understand the impact of emerging technologies on their practice. We teach our graduate students advanced technological approaches and methods and encourage them to research and develop new ones, always with a focus on the human dimension that enables them to understand how their ideas impact people and processes. Students participate in state-of-the-art fundamental and applied projects in the construction and infrastructure systems engineering areas of information technology and systems, data and system modeling and visualization, automation and robotics, infrastructure sensors and sensor systems, risk analysis, and other advanced technology-based areas.

The interdisciplinary nature of construction and infrastructure systems engineering encourages students to supplement their graduate program with courses from other areas at Georgia Tech, including computer science, electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering, building construction, and industrial and systems engineering.

RECENT NEWS STORIES

Natual gas storage tanks with excess methane burning off. (Photo Courtesy: Jeffrey Phillips via Flickr)
Your carbon footprint is probably higher than you thought, thanks to methane leaking from natural gas systems
Assistant Professer Iris Tien sits at her desk in her Georgia Tech office. (Photo: Allison Carter)
Building a better foundation: Iris Tien accepts the challenge
Assistant Professor Emily Grubert
New faces: Grubert blends engineering, social science to help us make decisions about our infrastructure systems

PEOPLE

Baabak Ashuri
Associate Professor 		Daniel Castro
Adjunct Associate Professor 		Yong Kwon Cho
Associate Professor
T. Russell Gentry
Adjunct Associate Professor 		Emily Grubert
Assistant Professor 		Laurence J. Jacobs
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor
Lawrence F. Kahn
Professor Emeritus 		Kimberly E. Kurtis
Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Scholarship & Professor 		Jamia Luckett
Administrative Professional, Sr.
Eric Marks
Professor of the Practice & Group Coordinator 		John E. Taylor
Frederick Law Olmsted Professor 		Iris Tien
Assistant Professor
Yi-Chang James Tsai
Professor

Environmental Engineering

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Our Environmental Engineering program provides comprehensive educational and research opportunities in air, land, and water science and engineering. Our faculty members have a broad range of experience and expertise. They work in top-notch research facilities. They collaborate extensively with other engineering and science faculty across campus.

That means we attract the highest-caliber students from a variety of engineering and science backgrounds. And we design your master’s or Ph.D. program specifically for your professional goals.

Our program is a key component in campus-wide initiatives on biological engineering, bioscience and biotechnology, nanotechnology, materials science and technology, sustainable technology and development, environmental science and technology, and energy systems.

Key Research Areas:

  • Air pollution: emissions, formation, transport, and deposition of aerosols
  • Chemical and environmental multiphase transport processes
  • Environmental and analytical chemistry
  • Environmental biotechnology for bioremediation of contaminated soil, sediments and waters
  • Hazardous substances in sediments, soils, waters and residues
  • Nanotechnology in the environment
  • Physical, chemical and biological processes influencing subsurface fate and transport of contaminants
  • Physicochemical processes for water and wastewater treatment
  • Sustainable technology and development

KEY RESEARCH PROJECTS
Bioaerosols and urban sanitation Air pollution and asthma morbidity: Data integration methods Ferrates to mitigate pharmaceuticals in urine
The Maputo sanitation trial Expanding the Microbial Genome Atlas Modeling complex urban systems
Peroxy acids for water treatment Energy use and regional economic resilience Role of microbial biodiversity in controlling soil N2O emissions
Sustainable Steel Manufacturing Using Domestic Wastewater for Food Production SAP Beads to extend shelf life of biological samples

 

RECENT NEWS STORIES

Professor Spyros Pavlostathis
Pavlostathis honored for connecting education, research, practice with medal named for former Tech professor
Graphic of cars, trucks and buses with clouds of smoke and a hazy city skyline. Text: The Next Frontier in Air Quality - Finding new ways to understand air pollution. (Graphic: Sarah Collins)
The next frontier in air quality: Kaiser studies the precursors to pollution to improve our cities’ air
Former Ph.D. students Shelly Zhang and Eric Johnston, who have won the Sigma Xi Best Ph.D. Thesis award for 2019.
Johnston, Zhang produce two of Georgia Tech’s best Ph.D. dissertations this year

PEOPLE

Mustafa M. Aral
Professor Emeritus 		Joe Brown
Carlton S. Wilder Assistant Professor 		Yongsheng Chen
Professor
John Crittenden
Director, Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems, Hightower Chair... 		Maohong Fan
Adjunct Professor 		Janet Hatt
Senior Research Scientist/Lab Manager Konstantinidis Group
Yongtao Hu
Senior Research Scientist 		Ching-Hua Huang
Professor & Group Coordinator 		Jennifer Kaiser
Assistant Professor
Kostas T. Konstantinidis
Professor 		John H. Koon
Professor of the Practice 		Lekia Mauesby
Administrative Professional Sr.
James A. Mulholland
Associate Chair for Graduate Programs and Research Innovation &... 		M. Talat Odman
Principal Research Engineer 		Spyros G. Pavlostathis
Professor
Armistead G. Russell
Howard T. Tellepsen Chair & Regents Professor 		F. Michael Saunders
Professor Emeritus 		Jim C. Spain
Professor Emeritus
Marc Stieglitz
Associate Professor 		Costas Tsouris
Affiliate 		Ambarish Vaidyanathan
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Xing Xie
Carlton S. Wilder Assistant Professor 		Sotira Yiacoumi
Professor 		Guangxuan Zhu
Senior Research Scientist

RESEARCH

 
Capture of Organic Iodides from Vessel Off-Gas Streams
Principal Investigator: Sotira Yiacoumi
Sponsor: Defense Threat Reduction Agency
 
Many cities, especially in developing countries, have poor sanitation infrastructure characterized by a number of interconnected problems, including uncontained wastewater flows, lack of functional sewerage networks, open sewers, poor drainage, highly contaminated urban waterways, inadequate treatment of wastewater, and unsafe disposal of biosolids. Residents of cities with poor sanitation are exposed to a range of pathogens via a number of pathways, contributing to a high burden of disease. One pathway that has not yet been adequately characterized in these settings is the aeromicrobiological (AMB) pathway: the transport of pathogens in aerosols where uncontained fecal waste exists in close proximity to population centers. In this project, the PI aims to advance our understanding of the role bioaerosols play in transmission of pathogens in these environments. Findings will be applicable to many settings in the U.S. and other developed countries as well; these settings include areas of intensive animal agriculture, wastewater infrastructure, and biosolids management. Field studies will be integrated with innovative, hands-on, undergraduate engineering courses focused on environmental problems affecting global public health in underserved communities.
Principal Investigator: Joe Brown
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
 
Phosphorus is an element that, along with nitrogen and potassium, has enabled large increases in food production in the U.S. and globally. Phosphorus is mined from natural deposits, but these deposits are diminishing. Contemporary reports indicate that there is a pending phosphorus crisis, as global supplies dwindle and demand for food increases. Currently, the utilization of phosphorus for fertilizer is energy intensive and expensive. Phosphorus supply is limited, and its recovery from food and other wastes and water bodies is virtually nonexistent. Traditionally, agricultural production has been optimized with little or no consideration of the losses of phosphorus beyond its use in producing crops. This practice leads to large energy needs for fertilizer production and for treatment of phosphorus waste in agricultural runoff, and food and animal wastes. The other side to this problem is that some phosphorus applied to agricultural fields is lost to lakes and rivers causing considerable environmental damage. These phosphorus issues significantly influence our food, energy, and water systems. Two key approaches to achieve sustainable phosphorus management are agriculture fertilization systems that more efficiently use phosphorous for plant growth and systems that recover phosphorus from food and animal wastes and from biowastes in contaminated water. Unfortunately, we do not have suitable recovery systems due to technological limitations and economic and infrastructure constraints. This project aims to develop an integrated and sustainable management structure that can simultaneously address the major technical challenges in biowaste management and agriculture fertilization systems. This management structure will enable recovery of phosphorous, energy, and water, thus increasing resource use efficiency and providing a new source of phosphorus for agricultural food production. 
Principal Investigator: Spyros Pavlostathis
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
 
Accurate and reliable exposure estimates are crucial to the success of any environmental health study. The overarching goal of this project is to develop and apply statistical methods to improve exposure assessment and exposure uncertainty quantification for spatio-temporal environmental pollution fields. This is accomplished by statistically integrating observations with additional data sources, including state-of-the-art computer model simulations and satellite imagery. We will develop methods motivated by three current research priorities in air pollution epidemiology: a) identifying susceptible sub-populations most at risk to air pollution exposures; (b) quantifying health impacts of air pollution under a changing climate; and (c) understanding sources of air pollution to develop control strategies. In Aim 1, we will develop multi-resolutional and multivariate data integration methods for ambient air pollution concentrations. We will supplement sparse observations from monitoring networks with simulations from a chemical transport model and multiple satellite retrieval parameters. The proposed methods will exploit the between-pollutant dependence and the spatio-temporal autocorrelation within each pollutant for better predictions. In Aim 2, we will develop multivariate bias-correction methods for climate model simulations using historical observations. The goal is to perform joint bias-correction across multiple variables such that the observed dependence is retained in future projections. In Aim 3, we will develop ensemble source apportionment methods for fine particulate matter pollution (PM2.5). The methods will estimate emission source contributions by combining results from several algorithms that incorporate different types of external information and assumptions. We will further utilize computer model simulations to spatially interpolate source information to locations without monitors. Methods developed from Aims 1, 2, and 3 will be used to create national databases of (1) daily concentration estimates for criteria pollutants and major constituents of PM2.5, (2) projections of ozone levels due to climate change under different future emission scenarios, and (3) daily estimates of contributions from multiple PM2.5 sources, including coal combustion, on-road diesel and gasoline combustion, biomass burning, and resuspended soil/dust. We will also provide uncertainty estimates, detailed documentation, and R packages to ensure these methods and estimates can be used in other environmental health studies. In Aim 4, we will acquire individual-level emergency department (ED) visit data from 25 cities during the period 2005-2014. The data integration products will be used to estimate short-term associations between asthma ED visits and multiple air pollutants and pollutant sources. The proposed health study fills a major gap by considering both elderly and non-elderly susceptible populations to support the development of targeted, effective risk reduction and preven- tion activities. While air pollution serves as the motivating application in this project, the methods proposed are highly applicable to other environmental exposures.
Principal Investigators: James Mulholland and Armistead "Ted" Russell
Sponsor: National Institutes of Health
 
Early-Time Signatures of a Nuclear Detonation in Urban Areas
Principal Investigator: Sotira Yiacoumi
Sponsor: Defense Threat Reduction Agency
 
Fate and Effect of Peracetic Acid Solutions in Poultry Processing Wastewater Treatment Systems
Principal Investigator: Spyros Pavlostathis
Sponsor: U.S. Poultry Foundation
 
Human urine accounts for less than 1 percent of domestic wastewater by volume yet urine contributes a disproportionate mass load of nutrients and pharmaceuticals to wastewater. While intensifying nutrient recovery in diverted urine has been proposed as a more sustainable alternative to conventional wastewater management, eliminating pharmaceutical micropollutants from the urine will also be highly beneficial. This project will develop a ferrate-based advanced oxidation technology (AOT) that is particularly promising for treating pharmaceuticals and their metabolites in the challenging urine matrices. Effective destruction of pharmaceuticals in urine can minimize energy-intensive treatment required at centralized wastewater facilities to remove these micropollutants, and reduce their potential harm to receiving waters and drinking water sources. This project will be led by Prof. Ching-Hua Huang at Georgia Tech and in collaboration with Profs. Virender Sharma and Leslie Cizmas at Texas A&M to elucidate the fundamental mechanisms of ferrate-based AOT and optimize the treatment efficiency in pollutant and toxicity reduction.
Principal Investigator: Ching-Hua Huang
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
 
Access to safe sanitation in low-income, informal settlements of Sub-Saharan Africa has not significantly improved since 1990. The combination of a high fecal-related disease burden and inadequate infrastructure suggests that investment in expanding sanitation access in densely populated urban slums can yield important public health gains. No rigorous, controlled intervention studies have evaluated the health effects of decentralized (non-sewerage) sanitation in an informal urban setting, despite the role that such technologies will likely play in scaling up access. We are conducting a controlled, before-and-after trial to estimate the health impacts of an urban sanitation intervention in informal neighborhoods of Maputo, Mozambique, including an assessment of whether exposures and health outcomes vary by localized population density. The intervention consists of private pour-flush latrines (to septic tank) shared by multiple households in compounds or household clusters. We are measuring objective health outcomes in approximately 760 children (380 children with household access to interventions, 380 matched controls using existing shared private latrines in poor sanitary conditions), at three time points: immediately before the intervention and at follow-up after 12 and 24 months. The primary outcome is combined prevalence of selected enteric infections among children under 5 years of age. Secondary outcome measures include soil-transmitted helminth (STH) reinfection in children following baseline deworming and prevalence of reported diarrheal disease. Further, we are using exposure assessment, fecal source tracking, and microbial transmission modelling to examine whether and how routes of exposure for diarrheagenic pathogens and STHs change following introduction of effective sanitation.
Principal Investigator: Joe Brown
Sponsors: U.S. Agency for International Development; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
 
The diversity of prokaryotic microbes on the planet is very large, estimated at over a billion species of bacteria, and most of it remains undiscovered. As genome sequencing can help characterizing this diversity and has recently become routine, most microbial scientists have been overwhelmed by the amount of available data. For many researchers, a complete and thorough analysis of the available genome data is not necessary. Instead, these users would be better served with straightforward methods that can identify their unknown DNA/RNA sequence(s), and be able to discriminate between well understood taxa and those that are potentially novel. Tools that can help direct researchers to the most "interesting" genomes and genes among thousands of candidates will be important. Furthermore, metagenomics, which is the sequencing of environmental DNA, allows the genetic characterization of the majority of these prokaryotes that have resisted cultivation in the laboratory. However, current tools to analyze metagenomic data are clearly lagging behind the development of sequencing technologies (and data), and are typically limited to genome assembly and gene annotation. This is a major limitation for better understanding, studying and communicating about the biodiversity of uncultivated microorganisms that run the life-sustaining biogeochemical cycles on the planet, form critical associations with their plant and animal hosts, or produce products of biotechnological value. Therefore, new approaches to make the emerging genomic and metagenomic sequence information readily available to the non-expert user are timely and essential in order to advance our understanding of the diversity and function of microbial communities across the fields of ecology, systematics, evolution, engineering, agriculture and medicine.
Principal Investigator: Kostas Konstantinidis
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
 
This three year project is designed to develop the theory that infrastructure systems, with their many interdependencies and complex adaptations, have many similarities to ecological systems.  The insights that arise from this grant will be useful in the future development of tools and methods used in the design and evaluation of urban infrastructure systems and their resilience under stresses like climate change, urban growth patterns, and extreme weather events.  The investigators also expect that perspective will be gained by examining the relative advantages of ecological design versus engineering approaches in the design of complex systems such as urban infrastructure.
Principal Investigator: John Crittenden
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
 
Peroxy acids (POAs), such as peracetic acid and performic acid, are emerging disinfectants/oxidants to replace chlorine in wastewater and storm water treatment. Compared to chlorine, the major benefits of POAs are their high effectiveness in disinfection and minimum formation of harmful byproducts. Furthermore, activated POAs by UV irradiation or catalysts are novel advanced oxidation processes that can be useful for degrading recalcitrant organic micropollutants in water. However, even with increased industrial usage of POAs, fundamental research of POAs trails behind their applications. This research project is led by Prof. Ching-Hua Huang to investigate the fundamental reaction kinetics and mechanisms of POAs and activated POAs for their applications in water treatment. The goal is to create the knowledge base that will be useful for improvement and optimization of the POA and UV/POA technology.
Principal Investigator: Ching-Hua Huang
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
 
Current economic models that aim to understand how energy use and efficiency interact within a regional economy are geared towards a broad scale. They also don't account well for an unintended consequence that crops up when energy efficiency is in play, known as the "rebound effect." For example, energy use for lighting, as a percentage of total energy use, tends to increase as lighting technology becomes more efficient. This project will develop a model that introduces adjustments to comprehensively evaluate the economic impact of the rebound effect, as well as tailoring the model to a more regional scale. Understanding energy use and efficiency at a smaller scale will reveal how both energy efficiency and supply shocks effect a region's economic and energy resilience.
Co-Principal Investigator: John Crittenden
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
 
Natural microbial communities, especially soil microbiomes, are highly diverse and encompass hundreds, if not thousands, of distinct bacterial and archaeal species, each of which encodes a couple hundred species-specific genes together with distinct alleles of shared genes. The basis for this astonishing microbial biodiversity and its relevance for ecosystem function remain poorly understood. Predicting ecosystem function from the resident gene/genome sequence diversity remains a particularly challenging issue for soil microbiology and soil management. Advancing these issues is important for better modeling ecosystem processes and the biogeochemical contributions of microbial species. To provide new insights into these topics, a key soil ecosystem process will be studied: nitrous oxide (N2O) reduction to dinitrogen (N2). N2O emissions from both managed and natural lands represent a loss of a key nutrient (nitrogen) for soil productivity, and contribute to climate change and stratospheric ozone destruction. A great diversity of bacterial species, each encoding distinct alleles of the N2O reductase gene (nosZ; N2O → N2), are considered keystone populations controlling N2O reduction to environmentally benign N2. The biotic and abiotic controls over N2O production and reduction activity, which ultimately determine N2O fluxes, are poorly understood, limiting management practices that would reduce fixed nitrogen loss from soils and mitigate negative impacts associated with atmospheric N2O.
Principal Investigator: Kostas Konstantinidis
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
 
This project will focus on developing innovative systems-based solutions for increasing the environmental sustainability of the Chinese steel industry.  China is by far the largest producer of crude steel, producing more than half of the global supply.  Such enormous production levels are driven by both domestic and foreign demand.  Steel production has significant environmental impacts, accounting for 6.7% of the total world CO2 emissions, and considerable use of, and toxic discharge to fresh water sources.  In comparison, due to efficiency measures undertaken in the past 3 decades, U.S. metal production is two thirds less energy intensive compared to that of Chinese industries.  The team will have cutting-edge access to the Chinese steel industry as well as eco-industrial parks, in which China is leading the world.  The team expects that many unique insights will be gained.
Principal Investigator: John Crittenden
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
 
The project goal is to couple the nutrient and water resources in domestic wastewater to urban controlled environment agriculture systems (DWW-CEAs). Supporting objectives include 1) confirming that produce growth rates and quality don't diminish compared to control experiments where synthetic hydroponic fertilizers are used, 2) confirming that chemical contaminants don't accumulate in the produce, 3) confirming that the produce is pathogen free, 4) reducing DWW treatment costs by using the latest in energy-positive treatment technology, 5) developing a sustainable Food, Energy and Water (FEW) system using modelling approaches to minimize investments in DWW-CEA systems while maximizing the utility of the systems, 6) providing an education in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics in high-tech wastewater treatment and CEA technologies, 7) developing a veteran workforce to help operate DWW-CEAs, and 8) guiding local policy to provide sustainable and long-lasting solutions to conserve our precious nutrient and water resources. To accomplish the project goal, a pilot-scale hydroponic system will be constructed and operated using DWW mined from the sewer system on the Georgia Tech campus. The DWW will be treated to remove contaminants and pathogens before being used to irrigate hydroponic systems to assure food and farm worker safety. Multiple fruit and vegetable varieties will be grown year-round. Water quality and chemical and microorganism contamination will be measured continously. The project will show that DWW-CEAs are socially, environmentally and financially sustainable, easily replicable in urban areas and will provide a long-lasting solution to conserve our precious water resources for food production.
Principal Investigator: Yongsheng Chen
Sponsor: U.S. Department of Agriculture
 
This project will test whether super-absorbent polymers in sample tubes can improve the accuracy of diagnostics by absorbing molecules like DNA and viruses from liquid samples such as blood, and protecting them during transport to the laboratory. Normally, blood and urine samples degrade over time, particularly when they are exposed to heat or cold. This makes the subsequent diagnostic result unreliable. They propose that low-cost, super-absorbent polymers can preserve diagnostic target molecules by separating them from contaminating cells and bacteria, which can be poured away from sample tubes, and providing a pH buffer and preservatives to extend their shelf-life. They will optimize synthesis of the beads and test their ability to preserve different analytical targets including a human virus surrogate and an antibody against HIV.
Principal Investigator: Xing Xie
Sponsor: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
 
 

Geosystems Engineering

A rocky cliff face against blue sky.

 

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Our geosystems engineering program merges geotechnics, geophysics, geomechanics and geology.

We focus on the behavior of natural materials in engineered systems, encompassing traditional and emerging topics within the field — like advanced techniques for site and material characterization; constitutive and micromechanical modeling; natural and man-made hazard mitigation; engineered soils; biotechnology; geotechnical aspects of resource recovery; and foundation design, slope stability, and excavation support.

Our graduate students work with world-class faculty to conduct fundamental and applied research using analytical, numerical, and experimental methods. They also help us teach and participate in a wide range of professional development and social activities coordinated by the Georgia Tech Geotechnical Society.

Facilities

Geosystems instruction facilities, research groups and laboratories occupy more than 10,000 square feet of custom space in the Mason Building. The research groups include:

Geoenvironmental Engineering Group

In-Situ Testing Research Group

Rock and Fracture Mechanics Research Group

RECENT NEWS STORIES

Alejandro Martinez welcomes engineers, biologists, physicists and others to the First International Workshop on Bio-Inspired Geotechnics in May at the University of California, Davis. The unique gathering aimed to better define the emerging field of bio-inspired geotechnics and connect researchers from a broad range of disciplines to collaborate on groundbreaking ideas in the area. (Photo: Noah Pflueger-Peters/UC Davis)
NSF workshop sets out to define ‘bio-inspired geotechnics’ and lay groundwork for new collaborations
Structure of a methane clathrate block found embedded in sediment in the subduction zone off Oregon’s coast. A German research ship found this hydrate roughly 4,000 feet below the ocean’s surface in the top layer of the ocean floor. (Photo Courtesy: Wusel007 via Wikimedia Commons)
Unlocking the mystery of methane clathrates — on Earth and on our solar system’s icy moons
Video screenshot of Rudy Bonaparte delivering the Karl Terzaghi Lecture on March 8, 2018. Split screen shows Bonaparte at a podium on the right and his title slide on the left, "Geotechnical Stability of Waste Fills – Lessons Learned and Continuing Challenges."
VIDEO: Watch Bonaparte’s Terzaghi Lecture

PEOPLE

Chloé Arson
Associate Professor 		Rudolph Bonaparte
Professor of the Practice 		Susan E. Burns
Associate Chair for Finance and Administration & Professor
G. Wayne Clough
Secretary Emeritus, Smithsonian Institution; President Emeritus, Georgia... 		Sheng Dai
Assistant Professor 		Jenny Freeman
Administrative Professional Senior
J. David Frost
Elizabeth and Bill Higginbotham Professor & Group Coordinator 		Haiying Huang
Associate Professor 		James Lai
Professor Emeritus
Jorge Macedo
Assistant Professor 		Paul W. Mayne
Professor 		Glenn J. Rix
Adjunct Professor
J. Carlos Santamarina
Adjunct Professor

Structural Engineering, Mechanics, and Materials

Two grad students examine data on a laptop in the Structural Engineering and Materials Lab with a shattered cinder block wall in the background.

 

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Our program’s academic and research activities have earned an international reputation for excellence — a reputation strengthened by an environment that fosters learning, discovery and creativity.

That world renown comes from our work in: creative use of advanced structural materials and composite systems to improve infrastructure; earthquake engineering; cladding effects on, and hybrid control of, the response of tall buildings to earthquakes and wind; steel connection design and behavior; and structural reliability and risk assessment.

Our students learn about — and conduct advance research on — structural analysis and design, the behavior of structural systems, earthquake engineering, engineering science and mechanics, high-performance materials, computer-aided engineering, risk and reliability, and intelligent engineering learning environments.

They are encouraged to form partnerships with each other and our faculty members to develop their skills and advance our profession. And we foster a multidisciplinary environment where we’re developing solutions to engineering problems of national and international importance.

Facilities

Our School is equipped with state-of-the-art laboratories and instruments for all aspects of modern structural engineering and structural mechanics and materials research. This includes:

  • An 18,000-square-foot Structures and Materials Laboratory with an 8,000-square-foot strong floor, an L-shaped reaction wall with capacities of 100-300 kips, and two 30-ton-capacity cranes. More… (Learn about construction of this facility in STRUCTUREmag.)
  • A broad range of universal testing machines, with capacity to 400 kips.
  • Specialized facilities for mechanical testing with infrared thermography and photoelastic stress/strain analysis.
  • A nondestructive evaluation/optics laboratory.
  • A laser scanning confocal microscope.
  • Numerous high-performance workstations equipped with state-of-the-art software in structural engineering and mechanics.

RECENT NEWS STORIES

A researcher measures the width of a crack in a reinforced concrete column after testing the strength of the column. A new project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency will develop a field-deployable tool to detect cracks far smaller than this — and inside rather than outside — thick reinforced concrete structures. (Photo: Chris Kiser)
New tool will give large concrete structures what amounts to an ultrasound, finding tiny cracks before they grow
Former Ph.D. students Shelly Zhang and Eric Johnston, who have won the Sigma Xi Best Ph.D. Thesis award for 2019.
Johnston, Zhang produce two of Georgia Tech’s best Ph.D. dissertations this year
Professor and Associate Dean Laurence Jacobs, left, accepts a lifetime achievement award in nondestructive evaluation from Tribikram Kundu at the SPIE Smart Structures and Nondestructive Evaluation Symposium in early March. (Photo Courtesy: Laurence Jacobs and SPIE)
Jacobs’ nondestructive evaluation work earns lifetime achievement honor

PEOPLE

Nelson C. Baker
Dean, Professional Education & Associate Professor 		Reginald DesRoches
Adjunct Professor 		Bruce R. Ellingwood
Professor Emeritus
T. Russell Gentry
Adjunct Associate Professor 		Barry Goodno
Professor Emeritus 		Laurence J. Jacobs
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor
Lawrence F. Kahn
Professor Emeritus 		Jin Yeon Kim
Senior Research Engineer 		Kimberly E. Kurtis
Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Scholarship & Professor
Roberto T. Leon
Adjunct Professor 		Jamia Luckett
Administrative Professional, Sr. 		Rafi L. Muhanna
Associate Professor
Glaucio H. Paulino
Raymond Allen Jones Chair & Professor 		David W. Scott
Associate Professor 		Lauren Stewart
Director of the Structural Engineering and Materials Laboratory &...
Phanish Suryanarayana
Associate Professor 		Iris Tien
Assistant Professor 		Yang Wang
Associate Professor; Adjunct Associate Professor (ECE)
Gerald Wempner
Professor Emeritus 		Donald W. White
Professor 		Kenneth M. Will
Associate Professor Emeritus
Chuang-Sheng (Walter) Yang, P.E.
Research Engineer II & Instructor 		Arash Yavari
Professor & Group Coordinator 		Abdul-Hamid Zureick
Professor

Transportation Systems Engineering

Tall concrete bridge span over the water next to an older truss bridge span.

 

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Transportation systems are the building blocks of modern society. Efficient and safe movement of information, people, goods and services ensures a thriving economy and improves our quality of life.

Our students study not only the efficient, safe design and operations of these critical linkages but also the systems’ influence on our travel behavior, how we design our communities and the quality of our environment. Working with our faculty of world-renowned scholars, graduate students also help improve the design and performance of our transportation systems as well as our understanding of how they fit into the environmental, institutional and social contexts of our society.

Students supplement their core technical transportation courses in urban planning, traffic engineering, highway and transit facility design, administration, and statistical analysis with interdisciplinary coursework from other units across Georgia Tech.

Facilities

Our research facilities include a unique traffic signal lab, an instrumented vehicle lab, and the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) laboratory.

RECENT NEWS STORIES

Screenshot of Atlanta Journal-Constitution story "Could drones be the solution to Atlanta's traffic gridlock?" including a rendering of a city with a four-propeller Uber Eats drone flying above.
AJC: New Tech center prepping for future where drones fly people over Atlanta traffic
Ph.D. student April Gadsby. (Photo: Jess Hunt-Ralston)
Gadsby to tackle policy side of transportation at Eno Future Leaders Development Conference
Cargo ship loaded with freight containers at sea with a muted, gray sky. (Photo Courtesy: Mike Baird via Flickr)
Maritime journal editor: Paper on shippers’ reluctance to use Northern Sea Route the year’s top research

PEOPLE

Adjo A. Amekudzi-Kennedy
Associate Chair for Global Engineering Leadership and Entrepreneurship,... 		Giovanni Circella
Senior Research Engineer 		Samuel D. Coogan
Demetrius T. Paris Assistant Professor
Laurie A. Garrow
Professor 		Franklin Gbologah
Research Engineer II 		Randall L. Guensler
Professor
Angshuman Guin
Senior Research Engineer 		Michael P. Hunter
Professor 		Marjorie S. Jorgenson
Administrative Professional Senior
Jorge A. Laval
Associate Professor 		John D. Leonard
Adjunct Associate Professor 		Haobing Liu
Research Engineer II / Instructor
John Z. Luh
Part-Time Lecturer 		Patricia L. Mokhtarian
Susan G. and Christopher D. Pappas Professor & Group Coordinator 		Srinivas Peeta
Frederick R. Dickerson Chair & Professor
Michael O. Rodgers
Regents Researcher 		Catherine Ross
Adjunct Professor 		Frank Southworth
Adjunct Principal Research Scientist
Wonho Suh
Affiliate 		Yi-Chang James Tsai
Professor 		Kari E. Watkins
Frederick Law Olmsted Associate Professor
Roger L. Wayson
Adjunct Professor 		Yi-Ching Wu
Research Engineer II

Water Resources Engineering

Green and purple day moves through the surf at the beach with white-capped waves rolling into shore and a series of work trucks lined up on the beach.

 

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Graduate students in Water Resources Engineering can expect a stimulating and diverse educational experience where you participate in innovative experimental, computational and modeling research that creates new knowledge.

Our program focuses on water, air, and land systems, with emphasis on the science and engineering applications of environmental transport processes and sustainable resource management. And our students and faculty members develop their research into new technologies that benefit engineering practice in fluid mechanics, hydraulics, hydrology, hydroclimatology, and water resources.

Facilities

The Environmental Fluid Mechanics Laboratory includes a large constant-head tank, a 4.3 m wide sediment scour flume, a 24 m long tilting flume, a recirculating flume for cohesive sediment resuspension, a recirculating salt-water flume, a density-stratified towing tank, and a 24 m long wave tank. Instrumentation includes Acoustic Doppler Velocimetry (ADV), Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV), Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), Laser-Induced Fluorescence (LIF), and three-dimensional visualization.

The Computational Laboratory includes a 16-node (64 CPUs) High Performance computing cluster and a number of Linux workstations. An eight-CPU, 32GB RAM visualization workstation was recently added. Our graduate students also have access to Georgia Tech's high performance computing systems and several European supercomputers.

Field instrumentation includes pressure transducers and ther mistors; a Campbell Scientific Eddy Covariance Tower System that directly measures sensible, latent and CO2 fluxes between the terrestrial landscape through the atmosphere. This tower includes soil moisture probes, a rain gauge and dataloggers. Additional equipment includes an ISCO portable water sampler with ultrasonic level sensor and rain gauge, a depth-integrating suspended sediment sampler, a bed sediment sampler, a PPP Spectral Analyzer, and current meters.

PEOPLE

Rafael L. Bras
Provost & Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, K. Harrison... 		Francesco Fedele
Associate Professor 		Hermann M. Fritz
Professor
Aris P. Georgakakos
Professor and Director, Georgia Water Resources Institute 		Kevin A. Haas
Associate Chair for Undergraduate Programs & Associate Professor 		Martin Kistenmacher
Research Engineer II
Jian Luo
Associate Professor 		Lynette McLeod
Administrative Manager I 		Philip J. Roberts
Professor Emeritus
Terry W. Sturm
Professor 		Jingfeng Wang
Associate Professor 		Donald R. Webster
Karen and John Huff School Chair & Professor
Map of School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Mason Building, 790 Atlantic Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332-0355
Phone: 404-894-2201
Fax: 404-894-2278