Annual Report Year 2009 - Civil and Environmental Engineering

PROGRAM AREAS
ENVIRONMENTAL AND WATER RESOURCES ENGINEERING
Randy Dymond coordinates the Land Development
Design Initiative, and is a recipient of a national award
for connecting education with professional practice.
Environmental graduate program ranks ninth in the country
The Environmental and Water Resources
(EWR) Graduate Program
Area is again in the Top Ten and
moving on up!
EWR was ranked ninth in the nation
(up from 10th last year) by U.S. News
and World Report for 2009. In the undergraduate
program area, U.S. News ranks
the environmental program 15th in the
country.
Well-prepared Virginia Tech Ph.D., M.S.
and B.S. students are graduating and
serving the profession. This year, EWR is
educating 100 students in the graduate
program alone.
During the past year, the EWR faculty
conducted a substantial strategic planning
exercise and identified three new
thrust areas in addition to the traditional
water, wastewater, hydrosystems and air
activities. The new areas are: water supply
and reuse; water infrastructure; and
environmental nanotechnology. Research
and teaching opportunities are being developed
and expanded in these areas.
In Blacksburg, EWR staff continues to
supervise teaching and research activities
in five buildings: Patton Hall, Durham Hall,
Norris Hall, Hancock Hall and the new
ICTAS building, adjacent to Durham Hall.
Betty Wingate and Beth Lucas primarily
provide administrative support to faculty
and students located in Durham Hall while
Merry Gayle Moeller covers the faculty
and students in Patton Hall. Together they
organize the new students each fall and
move them through the administrative
maze until they graduate.
The Durham, Patton, Hancock, Norris
Halls and ICTAS laboratories continue to
be in top-notch and safe working order
because of Julie Petruska’s and Jody
Smiley’s dedication to student and faculty
researchers and the instruments they use.
EWR is adding liquid chromatographymass
spectrometry to its extensive collection
of analytical chemistry instrumentation,
and just recently an “olfactory gas chromatography”
was installed so that researchers
can literally “sniff” the organic compounds
that elute from the gas chromatography
column and describe their odors.
Those who visit the EWR hydrosystems
area on the second floor of Patton will
marvel at the renovations. Replacing the
ping-pong table are high-tech and architecturally
appealing offices for students
and faculty, a conference room and the
newly dedicated G.V. Loganathan Library.
On your next visit to the department,
stop by this area and enjoy the books, art
work, and colleagues.
Susan Merten, the student services coordinator
for CEE at the Northern Virginia
Center, stays busy supporting all of the
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