Annual Report Year 2009 - Civil and Environmental Engineering

PROGRAM AREAS
ENVIRONMENTAL AND WATER RESOURCES ENGINEERING
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sociated with being co-chair of an AES
Special Issues Forum and as a member
of the program committee for the 2008
International Conference on Recirculating
Aquaculture (ICRA).
William Cox continued to focus on
water supply planning and management
issues in teaching and research.
Water planning research included
completion of a project for the Corps of
Engineers’ Institute for Water Resources
investigating the potential for shared vision
planning in Virginia’s James River
Basin. The water planning and management
focus involved several activities
within the American Society of Civil Engineers’
(ASCE) Environmental and Water
Resources Institute, including membership
on the technical executive committee and
several other committees.
Cox’s dominant emphasis during the
past year was administrative. Since an
Accreditation Board for Engineering Technology
(ABET) visit was scheduled in the
fall to assess the undergraduate program,
preparation of necessary documents and
coordination of the preparation of supporting
materials was a major activity for Cox.
Another administrative responsibility
focused on CEE curriculum development.
These responsibilities included significant
involvement in the review and revision of
the undergraduate CEE curriculum that
was underway throughout the 2008-09
academic year, assistance with course
proposal preparation, and other activities
associated with the undergraduate curriculum.
Andrea M. Dietrich received the 2008
American Water Works Association’s
Golden Spigot Award for service to the
drinking water community.
In acknowledgement of her achievements
in interdisciplinary research over
the past decade, the College of Engineering
selected her for a Dean’s Award for
Excellence in Research.
In October 2008, Dietrich delivered
invited keynote addresses in Korea and
Taiwan at two conferences that attracted
international experts on drinking water
quality.
During the academic year, she taught
analytical and environmental chemistry to
the next generation of environmental engineers
and scientists.
Her research group had many successes
this year, including launching into their
new careers. Ph.D. graduates Chang-
Hyun Jo, Pinar Omur-Ozbek, and Andrew
Whelton, and successful masters students
Andrew Benson, David Clark, Heather
Johnson, and Ryan Pierce, graduated.
Back in the lab, interdisciplinary Ph.D.
student Jose Cerrato is working at the
nano-interface of chemical and biological
cycling of manganese.
Continuing the research started by
Omur-Ozbek, Ph.D. student Susan Mirlohi
leads the research effort in metallic tastes
with the assistance of undergraduates
Shannon Flynn and Christine Sargent,
plus master’s student Jia Tang who is also
developing a model to predict contaminant
diffusion in distribution system materials.
Undergraduate researcher Timothy
Smiley investigated the role antioxidants
play in performance of polyethylene pipes,
an extension of Whelton’s dissertation
research which was also aided by undergraduates
Stephanie Pluta and Ted Halley.
Graduate students Andrew Benson,
David Clark, Heather Johnson, and Ryan
Pierce all contributed to the betterment
of distribution system materials with their
investigations of corrosion and improving
water quality.
Chang Jo applied advanced oxidation
to destroy drinking water odors, while the
research team of undergraduates Andrew
Snyder-Beattie and Timothy Byrne, along
with high school student Conor Gallagher,
asked volunteers to sip drinking water
and provide their opinions on the taste of
minerals. “UmUm Good” was often the
response.
The 2009-2010 year looks busy, as
Dietrich is leading an effort on “Water for
Health” that involves 11 other interdisciplinary
faculty at Virginia Tech who represent
research and teaching from three
colleges.
Panos Diplas continued his teaching
and research activities in the areas of environmental
and fluvial hydraulics.
His research efforts focused on numerical
modeling of river flows for stream
restoration purposes; determination of the
effect of fluctuating releases from the Roanoke
Rapids Dam of the Lower Roanoke
River, N.C., on bank stability; modeling the
effects of fluctuating instantaneous forces
on sediment movement; investigating the
behavior of flow through wetlands; scour
around bridge piers; the role of in-stream
structures on river stability and infrastructure
protection; and the characteristics of
tropical rivers.
The National Science Foundation,
Dominion Power, the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, Army Research Office, National
Cooperative Highway Research Program,
Virginia Department of Game and
Inland Fisheries, and Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) supported
these research projects.
Diplas advised 12 graduate students,
seven of them pursuing Ph.D.s, and the
remaining five MS degrees. Three of the
MS students, David Liu, Derek Spurlock,
and Ryan Radspinner, graduated and are
currently employed. John Petrie, a Ph.D.
candidate, received the Walker Graduate
Research Fellow Award from the Virginia
Water Resources Research Center. Papanicolaou,
a former Ph.D. student and
currently a professor of the CE department
at the University of Iowa, received
the ASCE Walter Huber Research Prize.
Together with his graduate students
and collaborators, Diplas published papers
in Science, Journal of Geophysical
Research-Earth Science, Journal of Hydraulic
Engineering, and Environmental
Science and Technology. He is the guest
editor of a special issue of the Journal of
Hydraulic Engineering, ASCE, on Stream
Restoration Hydrodynamics that will appear
in 2010.
He is also a member of the International
Scientific Committee International Conference
on Fluvial Hydraulics (River Flow
2010) that will be held in Germany.
Randy Dymond has been very active
in both teaching and research efforts in
the areas of land development, floodplain
mapping, urban stormwater, hazard mitigation,
and geospatial information technology.
Dymond teaches classes in land de-
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