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5 CEE UnveilsNew Website

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CEE Department HeadJIM GARRETT

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reetings from CEE at Carnegie Mellon! I am very pleased to report that we are experiencing robust enrollments at both theundergraduate and graduate levels. Our undergraduate programcurrently has 117 students spread relatively evenly over the sophomore, junior and senior classes. At the same time, we have

enrolled 104 full or part-time graduate students this fall (58 Ph.D. students and 46 M.S. students), making them our largest graduate student body ever.

I am also very pleased to announce that Julia and Michael Ellegood (CE ’60) have generously established the first Strategic Graduate Fellowship in CEE which will be used to help support doctoral students performing early-stage research in strategic areas. We are grateful to the Ellegoods for this important andgenerous support; details of this fellowship are presented later in this newsletter.

In the past six months, we have also established a number of exciting graduate programs with other international universities. In October, PresidentCohon signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Korean Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (KAIST) to establish a dual Ph.D.

degree program between our two CEE departments. Students in this program will spend a minimum of 2 years at each university, meet all requirements from both programs, and produce a dissertation that is acceptable to both programs. The program will provide our department with access to students, research opportunities, and

resources that may not have been available to us alone. In May, we signed another MOU with the recently established University of Trinidad and Tobago. UTT was created by the government of Trinidad and Tobago to transition the natural resources of the country (i.e., natural gas) into more knowledge-based assets. The MOU with UTT establishes a number of different activities, such as educating graduate students who will become UTT faculty members, hosting undergraduate and faculty exchanges, and assisting them in the creation of their curriculum. Both of these initiativeswill bring new students to our program and allow us to build much deeper

relationships with important international partners. We are currently exploring similar relationships with other partners with whom we currently have strong interactions.

We are pleased to announce that at our Alumni Dinner this past fall the Distinguished Alumnus Award was presented to Rex Elder (CE ’40) and the Outstanding Alumni Service Award was presented to Wayne Balta (CE ’82).We offer them both hearty congratulations for these awards!

We’ve expanded our alumni related events and activities. The events planned for 2008 are listed on the backcover of this newsletter and on our website. We invite all CEE alums to join us at these events and welcome your ideas for other alumni activities. I encourage you to bookmark our new website (www.ce.cmu.edu) to keep current of the exciting activity going on in CEE.

Thanks to all who help to make CEE at Carnegie Mellon a better place to work and study.

n the previous issue of the CEE newsletter, an article thanking donors contained typographical errors, mislocations, and a

few accidental omissions. CEE regrets the errors and wishes to acknowledge and properly thank the following people for theirgenerous donations:

Gifts of $1000 to $4999Dr. Rebecca Buchheit Clayton, Mr. & Mrs. Michael and Julia Ellegood, Mr. & Mrs. Michael Gonzalez, Dr. John Hribar, Mr. John Kenny, Mr. Jerome Lehman, Ms. Daria Pishko, Mr. Wasyl Pysh, Mrs. Daina Romualdi, Dr. Thomas Siller, Mr. & Mrs. Alec and Dotty Wisch, and Ms. Amy Wright.

Gifts to $999Dr. Norbert Ackerman, Mr. Kevin Anderson, Dr. Gordon Batson, Dr. Richard Behr, Mr. Stephen Cohn, Dr. A. J. Eggenberger, Dr. JohnGormley, Dr. Marc Halpern, Dr. L.R. Hettche, Dr. Alan Husak, Dr. Sandra Karcher, Mr. & Mrs. Saul and Beryl Kravitz, Ms. Valerie Lahti, Mr. Douglas Lambert, Mrs. Galina Leiphart, Mr. Donald Lessig, Mr. Stanley Lewandowski, Dr. Keith Meyer, Dr. Paul Ossenbruggen, Dr. Christopher Papadopoulos, Dr. Rita Patel, Dr. Raman Pichumani, Dr. Sujoy Roy, Dr. Tariq Samad, Dr. Jack Silberman, Mr. Kim Smith, Ms. Jessica Romualdi Snare and Dr. Ram D. Sriram

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IN THE PAST SIX MONTHS, WE HAVE

ALSO ESTABLISHED A NUMBER OF EXCITING

GRADUATE PROGRAMS WITH OTHER

INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITIES

CEE Corrections to the Donor Listing in Spring/Summer 2007 Issue:

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Materials, either natural or man-made, are a ubiquitous feature of ourbuilt and natural environment. They appear as geologic media throughwhich our evolving planet interacts with us, as load-bearing structuralmembers, as machine parts and as microelectrical mechanical systems(MEMS) in the devices used to sense our environments. Understandingthe mechanics of materials is important for many reasons: 1) mitigatingthe damage due to natural disasters, such as earthquakes, by predictinglikely areas to see damage and thus providing early warning; 2) to aid in the design of more earthquake resistant structures and materials; 3) for avoiding catastrophic land-slides due to failure and rapid flow of granular media like saturated soils; 4) for better and more cost-effectivedesign with existing materials used in structural, energy, and sensing applications, such as NiAl and TiAl alloys for light-weight, high-tem-perature operation in turbine engines for energy needs; and 5) for thedesign of new materials providing targeted functionality, such as high-strength and high-ductility, as in bulk metallic glasses or advanced high strength steels.

F EATURED STO RY

All of the above applications require a fundamental understandingof the mechanisms of stressing and deformation of the involved materials and structures at appropriate length and time scales. An important realization is that it is not possible to acquire the required understanding from experimentation alone, if at all. Even in caseswhere this may be possible in principle, present-day cost constraintsmake this solely experimental paradigm impractical; it is simply notpossible in today’s day and age to have a decade-or-more long designcycle to introduce a material for a specific application. Thus, advancedphysical modeling along with robust numerical simulation of thesemodels is a key to success in the applications described and many others.

At the scale of angstroms and femtoseconds, all of our materials ofinterest can be described by quite reliable physical theories (moleculardynamics/quantum mechanics) whose solutions, in principle, can becomputed at arbitrarily larger length and time scales. However, exceptfor very few applications related to the design of new materials for

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Many, if not most, phenomena in the natural and built environment occur at “macro-scales” which are many, many times coarser than the most elementary scales which govern them: the “micro-scales”. The two examples shown here are the deformation of an automobile frame during a traffic accident and a landslide in saturated soil after heavy rains in southern California. For the deformation of the auto frame, the most fundamental micro-scale objects that govern the response are the atoms which make up the metal in the frame; for the landslide, the

most fundamental micro-scale objects are the grains of soil on the hill side. Thelaws which govern the micro-scale arewell-known. One could, in principle, use“brute force” to directly simulate all of the elementary objects at the micro-scale.However, it will not be possible to perform these

simulations in the foreseeable future with even the most powerful computers on the planet: a very rough estimate would give as many as 1024 soil grains in a hill-side and 1028

atoms in an auto-frame; molecular simulations of metals require resolving atomic vibrationaltime scales of ~10-15 seconds while the time scale over which the auto frame deforms inrapid impact is ~1 second, a 15 order of magnitude difference.

On the other hand, the materials themselves often point to a more clever kind of modeling which can be done. If one were to look under a microscope, it would become apparent that there are other objects which are intermediate between the micro and macroscales which play an important role. In the case of metal plasticity, there are defects in the crystalline packing called dislocations that one can see here in the Transmission ElectronMicroscope (TEM) image shown in Figure 1. In the case of the grains, one observes chainsof forces which emerge to support the applied loads which one can see in the image of asheared packing of birefringent plastic beads shown in the middle row of Figure 1 (the color of each plastic bead represents the forces which are transmitted through it). It is the goal of multi-scale modeling of materials to infer the laws that govern the interactionof these objects at the coarser “meso-scales” using tools from continuum mechanics, dynamical systems theory, statistical physics, and the theory of partial differential equations. In our opinion, this type of sequential multi-scale approach is the only hope for being able to model macroscopic phenomena starting from microscopic principles.

Multiscale Modelingfor

Engineering Materials

Figure 1: Multiple scales involved inmacroscopic phenomena of interest

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nanoscale applications, all of the applications of our interest occur atlength and time scales that are simply not computable with the afore-mentioned physical theories, because of the number of computationsneeded, even with the most powerful computers that may be expectedto emerge in the next decade or more. This constraint forces us to studyexisting, and develop new, techniques for consistent and robust coarse-graining of fine length and time scale dynamical response. Such studyhinges on a careful attention to detail of specific applications coupledwith a serious study of, primarily, continuum mechanics, statisticalphysics, dynamical systems and mathematical homogenization theory.

The research of Professors Amit Acharya, Jacobo Bielak,Kaushik Dayal, and Craig Maloney focuses on the development andapplication of predictive multiscale materials modeling tools to the me-chanics of crystalline, granular, and amorphous materials. These toolsencompass modeling ranging from atomistic and molecular dynamicssimulation to field models of mesoscale and macroscale response devel-oped through coarse-graining theory or other approaches.

Existing tools for calculating macroscopic response of solids undercomplex loadings rely on elegant and powerful techniques involving finite element computations of nonlinear partial differential equationsthat require experimentally determined models of constitutive behavior.Unfortunately, in many cases of practical interest, this is not adequatefor accurate design and prediction. For example, to design against fatigue failure of gas turbine blades used in jet engines and electricitygeneration, one must address an as-yet unsolved problem in mechanicsof materials of predicting the stress response of a single crystal as a function of strain-path, strain rate, temperature, and crystal orientation,over the entire range of parameter-values of interest.

Thus, the long term research goal of our group is the scientific understanding, and practical application, of emergent behavior in com-plex materials systems, or the coarse-scale macroscopic behavior of crys-talline, granular and amorphous materials, both spatial and temporal.

Crystal Plasticity in Metallic Materials:The study of the solid mechanics of crystalline bodies of structural dimensions in the 1µm – 10nm range requires the consideration of crystal lattice defects, the most common of which is the crystal

dislocation. Examples of such struc-tures are semiconductor thin filmsused in electronic devices (LEDs,transistors), and metallic intercon-nects in integrated circuitry and actuators in MEMS devices. It iswell known that deformation mi-crostructures in structural metalscritically affect their response toloads – such microstructures are alsothe result of plasticity in the length-scale range mentioned above. Thegoal of Professor Acharya’s researchin Field Dislocation Mechanics and its appropriate averaging is the understanding of single and poly-crystalline plasticity from the nanoto macro scales, with a view towardsdeveloping predictive theory andcomputational tools for deforma-

tion-induced microstructure evolution. Figure 2 shows the prediction ofnovel size effects and heterogeneity patterns in the micron-scale response ofmetallic materials that are in accord with recent experimental observations.

The Field Dislocation Mechanics framework offers the intriguing possibility of serving as a general mathematical setting for modeling themeso and macroscale behavior in diverse applications like earthquake rupture dynamics and amorphous materials like metallic glasses, when characterized by appropriate physics related to material response. Such a development is being actively pursued as a collaboration between ProfessorsMaloney, Bielak, and Acharya along with Professors Luc Tartar and NoelWalkington in the CMU Mathematics department and collaborators in Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland.

Shear Localization in Metallic Glasses:Metallic glasses are an emerging class of engineering materials which offerthe high formability of thermo-plastics along with the high strength ofmetallic alloys. These are desirable properties for applications ranging fromcivil infrastructure to defense. Unfortunately, as their failure modes are notyet well understood, critical applications are currently out of the question.One common failure mode for metallic glasses involves bands of intenseshear strain that develop when samples are pulled in tension. The origin of these bands is currently a matter of debate.

Figure 3: Horizontaldisplacements in avertically com-pressed modelmetallic glass.

Figure 2: Dislocation microstructure and size effect in stress-strain response for micron scale metal plasticity

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on faults. The objective is to be able to generate realistic scenario earth-quakes that can be used as input in end-to-end, or “rupture to rivets”,simulations.

Coarse-Graining Nonlinear Dynamics of Materials SystemsThe question of deducing the general form and specifics of the lawsgoverning macroscopic response of materials based on well-establishedmicroscopic theories is essentially a mathematical and algorithmic one.Professor Acharya’s approach to this problem starts from a given finedynamics with some idea of what time-averaged coarse variables (i.e.time averages of aggregated degrees of freedom) one might be interestedin. This microscopic dynamics is augmented by the addition of appro-priate forward and backward time-delay variables corresponding to theoriginal set so that an appropriate macroscopic dynamics becomes asso-ciated with it that may be computationally approximated. In essence, apractically crucial time-scale separation is induced by the augmentationeven if the original dynamics did not come equipped with one. The development and implementation of this methodology involves sophisticated tools from nonlinear mathematics, statistical inference,numerical analysis, database management and data-mining. This workhas been successfully applied to small, but difficult, nonlinear problemsas proof-of-principle, as recorded in the technical literature.

Professors Acharya, Dayal, and Maloney, in collaboration withProf. Lucio Soibelman (AIS), Profs. Tartar and Walkington (Mathematics), Prof. Erik Ydstie (Chemical Engineering) along with

colleagues at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, the National Energy Technology Labs and applied mathematicians at the Univ. ofLeicester, UK, and Rennes 1, CNRS (National Center for ScientificResearch), France, are in the process of applying these ideas to a variety of practical problems in solid mechanics, biology, chemical engineering, and fluid dynamics.

- AMIT ACHARYA, JACOBO BIELAK, KAUSHIK DAYAL, AND

CRAIG MALONEY

Professor Maloney performs computer simulations of these metallicglasses at the level of individual atoms. Figure 3 shows a simulation con-taining a 2 dimensional slice of 1.6 million atoms. Simulations like thesetake several days of dedicated time on a cluster of more than 100 CPUs.The sample is being compressed vertically, and the color represents hori-zontal displacement in a short window of time. Shear strain appears as asharp gradient in color. The width of the bands that emerge in the simula-tions is only a few atomic spacings, while the ones observed in the labora-tory are thousands of times wider. However, the atomic scale bands seen inthe computer simulations form in a correlated way, with new bands formingpreferentially near existing ones. Prof. Maloney is currently working withProf. Acharya to develop meso-scale descriptions, within the Field Dislocation Mechanics framework, using the atomic scale simulations to parameterize the meso-scale models.

Understanding Active MaterialsActive materials display unusual couplings between deformation, tempera-ture, optics, and electromagnetism. Current research and development ofmicro-nano electromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS) provides new opportunities for exploiting these unusual materials. These opportunitiesalso require a fundamental understanding of the behavior of active materials at these small scales, especially in dynamic settings.

Professor Dayal’s research aims at formulating mesoscopic models anddeveloping numerical techniques to aid design and fabrication of activenanoscale devices. Currently, he focuses on using ferroelectrics to designnew optical switching devices and microwave circuit elements. A parallelstudy aims at an atomic-level understanding of instability, nucleation, andkinetics of microstructural elements in active materials. This will enabledevelopment of atomistically-informed mesoscopic models, and providemultiscale capabilities to understand and exploit these complex materials.

In the figure 4, a ferroelectric specimen is subjected to mechanicalloads. This leads to complex deformations near the tip of notch. The electric fields can lead to the motion of electrical impurities (or ‘dopants’)and is a potential failure mechanism that is currently being researched.

End-to-end Earthquake Modeling/Infrastructure ResponseTo prevent earthquakes from becoming disasters, it is essential to gain abetter understanding of how earthquakes originate, how the seismic wavespropagate from the source, how they amplify as they enter alluvial basins,and how the built environment responds to such excitation. ProfessorBielak is working on different aspects of this problem, including the for-ward and inverse-based simulation of the earthquake ground motion inlarge basins (figure 5) using high performance computing, and on the effectof this ground motion on portions of an entire city, including buildings,bridges, and underground structures. In addition, he and Professor Acharyause concepts of dislocation mechanics to study the dynamic rupture process

Figure 4: A ferroelectric crystal under electromechanical loading undergoescomplex microstructural changes

Figure 5: Spatial distribution of peak horizontal ground velocity in SouthernCalifornia due to a M 7.8 scenario earthquake on the San Andreas Fault. Insert shows the ground motion in the Los Angeles Basin.

CEE Faculty & Students Travel to AEESP Annual Conference

AEESP CONFERENCE

NEW CEE WEBSITE

NEWS BITS

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large contingent of faculty and graduate students from CEE attended and actively participated in the bi-annual conference of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) held on the campus of Virginia Tech from July 28 - August 1, 2007. The theme of the

conference was “Interactions at the Interface: Making the Connections Between Environments, Disciplines,and Nations.” CEE graduate students and faculty gave six platform and six poster presentations, led by Cliff Davidson’s plenary talk on the first day of the conference entitled “Changing the Discipline of Engineering: The Challenge of Sustainability.”

The complete program for the conference, including oral and poster presentations by CEE faculty and students is available at http://www.cpe.vt.edu/aeesp/.

The Department has a long historyof participation in and leadership ofAEESP. All CEE faculty members engaged in environmental educationand research belong to AEESP andserve or have served on AEESP committees. Mitch Small co-chairedthe 1995 AEESP/NSF Research Conference. Dave Dzombak servedon the Board from 1996-1999 and wasTreasurer from 1997-1999. JeanneVanBriesen has just been elected tothe Board. Alum Catherine Peters(CE ’92) served on the Board and wasPresident from 2003-2004. Alum Jim Mihelcic (CE ’88) is currentlyserving on the Board and was justelected President of AEESP for 2007-2008. Carnegie Mellon CEE faculty members and alums have in the past and continue to help form new directions in environmental engineering education and researchthrough AEESP.

CEE Unveils New Website

CEE recently unveiled a new website at www.ce.cmu.edu . Please visit the new site and send your feedback to NicholeDwyer at nichole@cmu.edu.

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Pictured above are CEE Faculty, Students, and Alums at the 2007 AEESPConference. First row (left to right): Deanna Matthews, Cliff Davidson, Jianhua Xu, Allison Harris, Mary Schoen, Jeanne VanBriesen, Anu Ramaswami, Greg Lowry, Stacia Thompson, Heather Wakeley,Shahzeen Attari. Back row (left to right): Scott Matthews, Dave Dzombak, Catherine Peters, Damian Helbling, Dominic Boccelli, Troy Hawkins, Joe Bushey, Jim Mihelcic, Dan Giammar, Julian Fairey, Joe Marriott, Kelvin Gregory, Mitch Small, Chris Hendrickson

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Michael (CE ’60) and Julia Ellegood Establish First CEE Strategic Doctoral Fellowship

ith the generosity of Michael and Julia Ellegood, the first ever strategic doctoral fellowship has been estab-lished in CEE. The fellowship will support a doctoral student, advised by a team of faculty members, and will target new strategic areas of research where more traditional funding sources may not yet be available.

Department Head Jim Garrett said that “We plan to use this fellowship to investigate new areas of research andit is our distinct honor to have Julie and Mike create such a lasting legacy in support of excellence in research for CEE.We greatly appreciate their generous support of our department.” Although this is the first such fellowship in CEE, it isthe department’s intention to raise four additional strategic doctoral fellowships over the coming years.

The Ellegood Strategic Doctoral Fellowship has been awarded for January 2008 to Professors Acharya, Soibelman and Dayal, who will use the fellowship to recruit a doctoral student to work on a simulation tool that isable to predict the dynamic response of a collection of atoms (in sufficient number for engineering applications) and attimes scales that are several orders of magnitude greater than the periods of atomic vibration. Such a tool will allow forthe tractable simulation of a number of important phenomena related to practical applications, such as fatigue crackinitiation/propagation in turbine blades/discs and the design of reliable microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices. The creation of this tool will require both theoretical contributions as well as the development of data management and data mining approaches to support the simulation.

For more information on this fellowship, please contact Jim Garrett.

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International Programs Established

CEE is excited to announce two new international collaborations that were established in 2007. The first international collaboration is with the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT). On May 15, 2007, the CEE

Department at Carnegie Mellonand the UTT signed a memoran-dum of understanding (MOU) to establish a collaboration. Asdescribed by UTT, they wereformed as “a private non-profitentity in order to revolutionizetertiary level education inTrinidad and Tobago in supportof the national developmentthrust towards achieving a more

developed nation status.” Their stated mission is “to be an entrepreneurial university designed to discover and develop entrepreneurs, commercialize

research and development, and spawn companies for wealth generation andsustainable job creation towards the equitable enhancement of the qualityof life of all individuals, families and communities of the Republic ofTrinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean”. UTT contacted CEE at CarnegieMellon to establish a collaboration in the fields of information and commu-nication technology (ICT) and construction technologies. The potentialareas of collaboration include enrolling existing or potential UTT staff orstudents in existing MS or PhD programs at Carnegie Mellon, collaboratingin research projects funded by Trinidad and Tobago companies and govern-ment agencies, assisting in the development of degree programs, and havingUTT’s undergraduate students participate in a summer internships atCarnegie Mellon funded by UTT

The second interna-tional collaboration is adual PhD degree pro-gram with the KoreanAdvanced Institute forScience and Technol-ogy’s (KAIST) Civiland Environmental Engineering depart-ment. The MOU,signed by both CMUPresident JaredCohon and KAISTPresident Suh Nam Pyo on October 5, 2007, reflects a commitment of both universities to explore new research opportunities as well as the jointeducation program, which enables PhD candidates at Carnegie Mellon andKAIST to earn a degree at each institution. Each PhD student in this program must apply and be admitted to both departments, meet all of therequirements for both PhD degree programs, and create doctoral disserta-tions that satisfy a committee made up of faculty from both institutions.This dual PhD degree program opens up a number of exciting possibilitiesfor collaboration between our two departments, which are focused on innovative areas in civil and environmental engineering such as advancedsensing-based systems for infrastructure, sustainable engineering, and environmental nanotechnology. New research opportunities will emergethat both universities can approach together by leveraging each depart-ment’s strengths. It will enable us to attract new students into our program who are interested in studying both at Carnegie Mellon and

KAIST. Finally, through these dual degree PhD students, researchers inboth programs will be able to make some use of each others research facilities. For more information on these collaborations, please visitwww.ce.cmu.edu/graduate/kaist.html.

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Green Design Apprenticeship Program

Since 2004, the Green Design Institute (GDI), an interdisciplinary research team of colleagues from CEE, Engineering and Public Policy,Mechanical Engineering and the Tepper School of Business, at CarnegieMellon University has offered the Green Design Apprenticeship Program for local high school students. Each year, a cohort of 15 to 20students meet for five school days spread over a five-month period. The Apprenticeship continues to be a top choice for students applying for apprenticeship programs, and the number of students participating hasgrown each year.

The Green Design Apprenticeship introduces students to the princi-ples of green design, including the connections between engineering and environmental and social issues. Topics cover the breadth of thefield and are based on research conducted by the GDI. Topics includeLife Cycle Assessment, impacts of energy production and consumption, issues regarding water quality and quantity, future transportation alternatives, and advances in green building. Students use the on-lineEconomic Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment tool (www.eiolca.net),determine their personal electricity consumption, compare feasibility oftransportation vehicles and fuels, and debate public infrastructure needsfor water and electricity. A highlight of the program is a tour of theCMU campus and the extent of green design incorporated into newconstruction and building renovation projects, where students see first-hand how the concepts they have learned are engineered into buildings.

The program is part of a broader apprenticeship program, the AIU3 Gifted and Talented Apprenticeship Program, organized by theAllegheny Intermediate Unit, a regional educational service agency ofthe Pennsylvania Department of Education. The program couples students with professionals in many fields to explore future career possibilities.

The Green Design Apprenticeship is supported through the NationalScience Foundation as outreach to broader audiences on various GreenDesign Institute grants, and through funding from the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research (SEER).

- JAMES GOWER

Green Design Apprentice-ship students presentinginformation about the life cycle of beverage container materials.

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CEE NEWS Continued

DEPARTMENT NEWS BITS

Spring 2007 Design and Construction Project

The spring 2007 Designand Construction projectwas a garden and seatingarea in honor of the lateAllen Newell. ProfessorNewell taught atCarnegie Mellon for 36years and is consideredone of the founders of the fields of artificial in-telligence and cognitivescience. The project wasfunded by his wife, Mrs. Noël Newell.

The project site was located on a below-grade hillside on the northside of Newell Simon Hall. This building was formerly owned by theU.S. Bureau of Mines and was the center of their national coal research.The university purchased it from the U.S. government in 1985. On theeast and west side of the hillside are matching 12 foot diameter chimneysthat have been truncated and capped. The caps are 4 feet below existinggrade. In 1993, the Design and Construction project was the installationof a fire escape and deck atop the west chimney. The Newell project sitewas the east chimney.

The final design was a series of five overlapping squares that spiraldown the hillside and terminate on the chimney. The squares increase in size from 6’ by 6’ to 12’ by 12’. In plan view, the squares also rotatecounter-clockwise. The four upper squares required caissons for support.These were drilled by JG Contracting, owned by John Gyurina(CE ’87). Above the caissons, four cylinders were cast in pumpkin colored concrete to match the shape and color of the chimney.

The five square decks were cantilevered structures of charcoal concrete. Each square had built-in planters which required creativeplacement of the reinforcing steel. To further compound the problem,there was a spiral ramp that extended from the top to the bottom square. The ramp was included to make the design compliant with theAmericans with Disabilities Act. This also posed problems in ‘the design’of the cantilevered squares. In total, the students placed 38 cubic yards of concrete.

The ramp and surface of the lower deck were fabricated of Trex®, a recycled wood and plastic product. All squares were surrounded by 42”high glass walls. The glass was ½” thick, tempered safety glass. The glassenclosure provides an ethereal look to the entire structure.

An existing concrete wall on the east side of the site was coveredwith a “living wall” system. This is a system of stainless steel angles andcables which enable creeping plants to grow up the wall without con-tacting it. Virginia Creeper plants were planted at the base of the wall.The remaining hillside was planted with assorted shrubs and 1500 ivy plants.

The students also designed and built three benches for the lowerdeck. They are made of cedar and have unique swiveling mahogany armrests which could accommodate a lunch or a laptop computer. Thelower deck also includes two ground-fault convenience outlets and astainless steel base for the future addition of an umbrella.

The site has been in use since the first available day. It provides aunique experience setting above a hillside and being surrounded by glass.

-LARRY CARTWRIGHT

CEE Receives Graduate Fellowship HonoringChina’s Mao YishengCEE gratefully acknowledges the receipt of $50,000 from the MaoYisheng Scientific and Technical Education Fund to establish an endowment for a graduate fellowship to honor the memory andtechnical excellence of China’s pioneering bridge builder, MaoYisheng. Dr. Yisheng earned Carnegie Mellon’s first Ph.D. in 1919. The establishment of this fellowship was celebrated during areception on June 6, 2007, which was attended by Mao’s daughter, Madame Mao Yulin. For more information on how to cotribute tothis fund, please contact Jim Garrett.

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Garrett and Soibelman Appointed as Co-EditorsProfessors Jim Garrett and Lucio Soibelman were recently selected by a national committee to be co-editors-in-chief of the ASCEJournal of Computing in Civil Engineering starting in January 2008.The journal, published bimonthly, is a leading publication in the areaof computer research in civil engineering.

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Marano Designated as Distinguished Faculty of SRADonna Marano, Director of Finance and Administration for CEE, received the designation of 2007 Society for Research Administrators(SRA) International Distinguished Faculty Member. The designationrecognizes individuals who continually distinguish themselves as exem-plary teachers, scholars and practitioners in the field of Research Administration. In 2007, Donna was also elected as an at-large boardmember for SRA.

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New M.S. Program in CEE EstablishedA new M.S. program has been established in the field of Global Sustainable Construction. This new program, offered by CEE, seeks toeducate future decision makers in the construction industry about howthe global and local drivers of sustainability are likely to affect their decisions. The suggested core curriculum introduces students to theeconomic, environmental, and social implications of the constructionindustry. Participating students will learn how to make decisions specif-ically geared towards sustainable construction practices. The ability todefine sustainability with respect to local as well as global effects is important for achieving such global sustainable construction practices.Courses on construction project management, the global constructionprocess, economic planning, environmental life cycle assessment, andsustainability will provide the foundation for sustainable constructionprocess decision making. The courses in this program are taught by across-disciplinary team of professors, including faculty in CEE’s Advanced Infrastructure Systems (AIS) and Environmental Engineering Science and Management (EESM) groups.

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STUDENT AWARDS

TEAMS CONTEST

Seungbum Kim and Saurabh Puri Win Awards

Ph.D. candidates Seungbum Kim and Saurabh Puri were recently recognized for their research. Seungbum Kim and his advisor AdjunctProfessor Hoon Sohn won the Best Student Paper at the Interna-tional Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring at Stanford Univer-sity for their paper entitled, “Instantaneous Crack Detection in Thin MetalPlates and Aircraft Panels.”

Saurabh Puri was selected to receive a Philipand Marsha Dowd Fellowship given by the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems Department at Carnegie Mellon for his project, “Strength, Internal Stress and Relaxation in Mesoscale Plasticity.”

Congratulations to Seungbum and his advisor Professor Sohn and Saurabh and his advisor Professor Amit Acharya!

Students Win Prestigious Contest

Four graduate students are first-place winners in a national letter-writing competition called “Tomorrow’s Energy Ambassadors, Managers and Scholars (TEAMS)”. Shahzeen Attari (CEE/EPP),Ines Margarida Lima de Avezedo (EPP), Benjamin Flath(CEE), and Constantine Samaras (CEE/EPP) wrote an openletter to the 2008 presidential candidates challenging them on theissues of energy and sustainability. The contest was sponsored by

Johnson Controls and asked students from 200 member schools ofthe Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) to participate. The winning letter was published in the Nov. 20, 2007 issue of USA Today.

Chi Epsilon Inducts New Members

Chi Epsilon, a national civil engineering honorsociety, inducted new members this past fall. The new members include undergraduate studentsKatherine Basta, Katelynn Benton, DanielCox, Christopher Fornataro, Paz Gilboa,Thomas Hendrickson, Nolan Kurtz, JenniferLawrence, Albert Penksa, Patrick Snyder,Andrew Stocchetti, Corey Tucker and Professors Susan Finger and Kelvin Gregory.

• • • • •

Seungbum Kim Saurabh PuriLeft to right: Benjamin, Constantine,Shahzeen, Ines and advisor Professor Dave Dzombak

Undergraduate Students Study Hazardous Art SuppliesFor some time, Carnegie Mellon University has stressed ‘green’ awareness in its practices and attitudes. Accordingly, the campus art store expressed interest in assessing the type of art products offered, with hopes to provide greener alternatives wherever possible. As part of Professor Susan Finger’s CEE Projectscourse, CEE students Amanda Mitchell and Pamela Torres, along with Information Science studentDevin Blais conducted abbreviated Life Cycle Assessments for 20 art supplies sold in the campus art store.

The products, known to be hazardous when handled improperly, were analyzed for impacts to health andenvironmental impact from the moment the product arrives on campus to the moment it leaves. The teamdelivered a database summarizing the results of the life cycle assessment, safety risks, safe practices, proper disposal and possible alternatives. With this information in hand, the art store is better equipped to make informed decisions regarding future art supply purchases.

The project continued after the end of the course with funding from a Small Undergraduate ResearchGrant (SURG) offered through the Undergraduate Research Office.

-JAMES GOWER

C M U 10 C E E

LAUDISE PRIZE

NSF GRANT

NRC REPORT

New NSF GrantJacobo Bielak and colleagues were recently awarded a prestigious grantfrom NSF. The $1.6M grant was awarded for the proposal, “TowardsPetascale Simulation of Urban Earthquake Impacts.” Professor Bielaksubmitted this proposal to the NSF PetaApps program: Accelerating Discovery in Science and Engineering Through Petascale Simulations and Analysis, together with his Co-PIs Ahmed Elgamal of UCSD, Greg Fenves of UC Berkeley, Kwan-Liu Ma of UC Davis, and Dave O’Hallaron, of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon. Congratulations to Jacobo and his colleagues!

Jeanne VanBriesen Collaborates on Best Paper

Professor Jeanne VanBriesenwas a collaborating author on thepaper, “Cost-effective Outbreak Detection in Networks”. The paperwas presented and won best studentpaper at the Association for Comput-ing Machinery Special Interest

Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining(ACMKDD). Jeanne collaborated with Computer Science students Jure Leskovec and Andreas Krause,and Computer Science Professors Carlos Guestrin andChristos Faloutsos and Google Technical Staff Member Natalie Glance.

• • • • •

Scott Matthews Wins Laudise Prize at ISIEProfessor Scott Matthews wasawarded the prestigious Laudise Prizeat the 2007 International Society forIndustrial Ecology Annual Meeting.The Laudise Prize is given for signifi-cant contributions to industrial ecology by a young scientist or

engineer of outstanding ability. It is sponsored by AT&T and in memory of Robert Laudise.

• • • • •

Jacobo Bielak Elected to MAEProfessor Jacobo Bielak has beenelected as a Corresponding Member of the Mexican Academy of Engineer-ing. It is one of the highest honorsthat an engineer can receive in Mexico. Professor Bielak was electedbecause of his contributions to compu-

tational science and engineering with application toearthquake engineering and engineering seismology.The Mexican Academy of Engineering brings togetherdistinguished engineering practitioners and researchersfrom the private and public sectors, with the objective of working towards the increasing and sustainable

FAC

ULT

Ydevelopment of Mexico. It functions as a consultingorganization to various public and private institu-tions responsible for teaching, developing or applying engineering knowledge or scientific and technological research.

• • • • •

Kelvin Gregory Receives DOE GrantProfessor Kelvin Gregoryhas recently received a grant fromthe Department of Energy (DOE)Environmental Remediation Science Program entitled “Elec-tro-de-Induced Removal and Recovery of Uranium(VI) from

Acidic Sub-surfaces”. This research will evaluate anovel technology for in-situ recovery of uraniumfrom contaminated groundwater at Oak Ridge National Lab.This is an exploratory grant for 18months and $150K, and offers significant opportu-nity for long-term support should the technologyprove to be a practical solution for this long-term,complex, and recalcitrant problem at ORNL.

• • • • •

Dave Dzombak Participates in NRC Report Release

Professor Dave Dzombakchaired a National ResearchCouncil (NRC) committee on“Mississippi River Water Qualityand The Clean Water Act” that released its report on October 15,2007 stating “The U.S. Environ-

mental Protection Agency must take a more aggres-sive leadership role in implementing the CleanWater Act if water quality in the Mississippi Riverand the northern Gulf of Mexico is to improve.”The full press release on this committee and its report can be see at: www.nationalacademies.org.

• • • • •

Larry Cartwright Wins Alumni AwardAt the Carnegie Mellon AlumniAwards Ceremony in October2007, Teaching Professor Larry Cartwright was awardedwith the Faculty Service AlumniAward. It is awarded for extraordi-nary commitment to the support

and education of Carnegie Mellon alumni aroundthe world.

ALU

MN

I John R. Kenny, (CE ’82) P.E., DBIA,has been named a senior vice presi-dent and appointed to the Board of Directors of Gannett Fleming, Inc.,an international planning, design,and construction management firm.

• • • • •

Bobbi Marstellar, (CEE ’93) recently appointed vice president ofthe American Institute of Steel Construction, Inc., was featured in an ‘On the Job’ cover story in Engi-neering News Record. See the July16, 2007 issue at www.ENR.com.

Bobbi was also named one of the ‘40 under 40’ executives in the Chicago Business Weekly. Visitwww.chicagobusiness.com and search for Nov. 5, 2007issue or ‘40 under 40’.

• • • • •

Rick Creech (CE ’84), Principal of Creech Engineers,Inc., received a 2007 Hot Firm Award from Zweig-White for his company as one of the top 100 fastestgrowing engineering firms in the country.

• • • • •

Stanley Lewandowski (CE ’45)was recently honored by NASAwith a brick bearing his name in theSpaceWalk of Honor at the KennedySpace Center Visitor’s Complex. Mr. Lewandowski was honored inrecognition of his work as a struc-

tural engineer on the Boeing Saturn V Ground Support Team, in charge of guaranteeing the structural integrity of the Mobile Launcher and theLauncher Umbilical Tower.

HOT FIRM AWARD

ALUMNI AWARDS

NEW APPOINTMENTS

Rajat Ghosh (CEE ’93) , a seniorproject leader at Alcoa TechnicalCenter, was selected to participatein the prestigious National Acad-emy of Engineering’s (NAE) 13thannual U.S. Frontiers of Engineer-ing symposium. The three-day

event brought together engineers ages 30 to 45 whoare performing exceptional engineering research andtechnical work in a variety of disciplines.The partici-pants—from industry, academia, and government—were nominated by fellow engineers or organizationsand chosen from more than 260 applicants.

• • • • •

Karl Dahm (CEE ’98) was recently named Directorof Engineering for QC Laboratories, Inc. in Houston, TX. QC Laboratories is a diversified firm of professional engineers and technical specialists offering material testing and consulting services.

• • • • •

Joe Belechak (CE ’81) has been appointed VicePresident for Strategy at Westinghouse Electric. Mr. Belechak will have overall responsibility forstrategic planning, with emphasis on Westinghousestrategic initiatives in the areas of flawless productsand performance, growth through alliances and acquisitions, and increased market share. As head ofthe Westinghouse Strategic Council, he will workclosely with Westinghouse’s three business units, Nuclear Fuel, Nuclear Services and Nuclear PowerPlants, to ensure effective integration and maximiz-tion of all Westinghouse strategic growth initiatives.

• • • • •

Christian Buergy (CEE ’02) was recently namedthe new Managing Partner of Texxmo Mobility Solutions. Texxmo develops solutions for mobilecomputing.

C M U 11 C E E

Two alumni were given awards at the annual CEE Alumni Dinnerheld in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon’s Homecoming on October

25, 2007. The two awards presented at the dinner were the Distin-guished Alumnus Award and the Outstanding Alumni

Service Award. The Distinguished Alumnus Awardwas given to Rex Elder (right). Mr. Elder is retiredfrom the Tennessee Valley Authority for which hedirected the renowned TVA Hydraulics Laboratory.The Outstanding Alumni Service Award wasgiven to Wayne Balta. Mr. Balta is currently theVice President of Corporate Environmental Affairsand Product Safety at IBM Corporation. Please seewww.ce.cmu.edu for more details on these awards.

Alumni Awards Given at CEE Alumni Dinner

Carnegie Mellon University does not discriminate and Carnegie Mellon University is required not to discriminate in admission, employment, or administrationof its programs or activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, or handicap in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, or other federal, state, or local laws or executive orders.

In addition, Carnegie Mellon University does not discriminate in admission, employment, or administration of its programs on the basis of religion, creed,ancestry, belief, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation, or in violation of federal, state, or local laws or executive orders. However, in the judgment of theCarnegie Mellon Human Relations Commission, the Department of Defense policy of “Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue” excludes openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual students from receiving ROTC scholarships or serving in the military. Nevertheless, all ROTC classes at Carnegie Mellon University are available to allstudents.

Inquiries concerning application of these statements should be directed to the Provost, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA15213, telephone 412-268-6684, or to the Vice President for Enrollment, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, telephone412-268-2056. Obtain general information about Carnegie Mellon University by calling 412-268-2000.

Carnegie Mellon University publishes an annual campus security report describing the University’s security, alcohol and drug, and sexual assault policies,and containing statistics about the number and type of crimes committed on the campus during the preceding three years. You can obtain a copy by contact-ing the Carnegie Mellon Police Department at 412-268-2323. The security report is also available at www.cmu.edu/security.

Carnegie Mellon University makes every effort to provide accessible facilities and programs for individuals with disabilities. For accommodations/services, please contact the Equal Opportunity Office at 412-268-2012.

Department of Civil and EnvironmentalEngineeringCarnegie Mellon University5000 Forbes AvenuePittsburgh, PA 15213-3890

Civil & EnvironmentalENGINEERINGENGINEERING

CEE

Mark your calendar for the 2008 CEE Alumni Events!

� April 17, 2008: CARNIVAL! CEE reception and alumni award presentation in the Tung Au Lab from 6:00pm to 8:00pm

� July 12, 2008: Annual Alumni Family Picnic! Morning activities will include studentposter presentations, children activities, and a campus tour including senior design projectsfollowed by a family barbecue, fun and games at noon!

� October 23, 2008: Homecoming! CEE hosts the Annual Alumni Reception and dinnerat the Pittsburgh Athletic Association (PAA), followed by a brief program will include anupdate on CEE and alumni awards presentation.

� Visit www.ce.cmu.edu/people/alumni for details.

CEE NewsletterFall/Winter 07/08

Department Head:Jim Garrett

Editor:Nichole Dwyer

Design:Dan Hart

CEE website:www.ce.cmu.edu t: 412.268.2940 f: 412.268.7813

email: nichole@cmu.edu

Writers:Amit Acharya, Jacobo BielakLarry Cartwright, KaushikDayal, James GowerCraig Maloney